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Library of The Theological Seminary 


PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY 


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ΕΠ  ΞΟΥΙΕΕΒ 


ON THE 


EARLY HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 
OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION 


Being the Bampton Lectures for 1893 


W. ἀπ ΡῈ ΤΡ σὺν Wen an) oF 


LADY MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AND 


CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD 


THIRD EDITION 
ENLARGED, WITH A NEW PREFACE 


NEW YORK 


BONGM ANS, GREERNBAND (CO; 
LONDON AND BOMBAY 


1896 


Ecclesiae Maiori Anglicanae 
SCILICET OMNIBUS QUI EX GENTE ANGLORUM ORIUNDI 
QUOCUMQUE SUB NOMINE 


CHRISTUM EX ANIMO COLUNT ET VENERANTUR 


Ecclesiae Maiori Anglicanae 


CUI ET MINOREM ILLAM 
CULUSPIPSE SACRA PERO ER FIERUS, AUDIO 


DUCEM ET QUASI SIGNIFERUM ESSE VELLEM 


Ecclesiae Maiori Anglicanae 
QUAM INTER SPEM ET SOLLICITUDINEM 
SED SPE MAIORI QUAM SOLLICITUDINE 
SINGULARI AMORE PROSECUTUS SUM ET PROSEQUOR 
HAS CONTIONES QUALESCUMQUE 
DEDICO 
PRECATUS UT SIBI SE NON IMPAREM PRAESTET 
SED ANTIQUA PIETATE NULLATENUS REMISSA 
AD NOVA MUNERA, NOVAM RERUM CONDITIONEM 
DEO ADIUVANTE 


SE FORTITER ET FELICITER ACCINGAT 


E ee ἢ isasana, 


| ‘= Δ oyu sii nae 72 ia wie 
᾿ ι iy Ν 
“-- "Ὁ αὐ 5}. ἦι 


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FROMTHE LAST WILL AND TESBAMENT 


OF THE LATE 


REV. JOHN BAMPTLEON;, 
CANON OF SALISBURY. 


—— “I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
“Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of 
“Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the 
“said Lands or Estates upon trust. and to the intents and 
“purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and 
“appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- 
“ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, 
“issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, 
“and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- 
“mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser- 
“mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and 
“to be performed in the manner following : 


“1 direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in 
“Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads 
“of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining 
“to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the 
“morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity 
“Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary’s in Ox- 
“ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent 
“Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. 


Vili EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON’S WILL. 


“ Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
“Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following 
“ Subjects—to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and 
“to confute all heretics and schismatics—upon the divine 
“authority of the holy Scriptures—upon the authority of 
“the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and 
“ practice of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity of our 
“Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—upon the Divinity of the 
“Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as 
“comprehended in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. 

* Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- 
“ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months 
“after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the 
“Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of 
“every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of 
“Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; 
“and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the 
“revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the 
“Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be 
‘paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. 

“ Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali- 
“fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath 
“taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the 
“two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the 
“same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser- 
“mons twice.” 


Picker AGE 
ἐπ ΕΓ ΠῚ EDITION 


Tue opportunity has been taken of the issue of a 
third edition of this work to add in the form of an 
appendix a sermon preached before the University 
of Oxford, which is really an expansion and develop- 
ment of one of the main positions in Lecture III. 
In the mind of the writer it was also a leading 
idea—if not fhe leading idea—in the whole series. 
It seemed to him that the phenomena of the Bible 
do in fact demand such an explanation as that to 
which we give the name ‘Inspiration, that the most 
typical form of this is that which appears in the 
writings of the Prophets, and that the best account 
of it is that which may be gathered from the words 
of the Prophets themselves. 

The writer wishes that he could satisfy more 
entirely some of the most indulgent of his critics, 
who would have liked to see greater emphasis laid 
on the authority of the Church in relation to the 
Bible. He believes that the Bible can stand upon 
its own basis, and that it is best that it should be 


x Preface to the Third Edition. 


allowed so to stand. Otherwise he does not see 
what answer can be given to the accusation which 
is so often brought against Christian thinkers of 
arguing in a circle—first resting the Church on 
the Bible, and then the Bible on the Church. To 
the writer it seems that the authority of the Bible 
does not need any such intermediate step. The 
Divine force behind it is one that can be felt—and 
felt directly—without the aid of any external sanction. 
The action of the Church in the formation of the 
Canon is not indeed superfluous, but, as compared 
with this direct witness, quite subordinate. Nor is 
the Canon itself a thing so hard and fast as to admit 
of no gradation either within its limits or outside 
them, ‘Through all the centuries of Christian history 
down to the present, more than one canon has been 
current and has met with a varying degree of accept- 
ance, which shows that the line cannot be drawn too 
sharply. The method of the Divine working is a 
method of calminations. Ina certain race, in certain 
classes within the race, and in certain individuals 
within the classes, it rises to exceptional heights; but 
that does not mean either that it is absent from all 
the rest, or that even in the most favoured the 
channels through which the Divine working acts are 
otherwise than human. 

On this side of the question—the side of external 
sanction—the writer may be thought to minimize the 


part played by the Church in relation to the Bible. 


Preface to the Third Edition. xi 


But if so, there is another side on which he is inclined 
—and increasingly inclined—to magnify it. There is 
no true antithesis between the Church and the Bible. 
The Bible is really the voice of the Church in its 
first and greatest age. However much, and however 
rightly we may elevate the authority of Prophets, 
and Wise Men, and Apostles, that authority does not 
belong to them either as speaking or writing in 
isolation. They are always in closest touch with the 
Church of their day, and they draw spiritual sustenance 
from the contact—even though they give it back in 
redoubled measure. Nor is the Bible wholly made 
up of the writings of Prophets, and Wise Men, and 
Apostles, known as such to history. How many of 
the authors of the Psalms are nameless! And if the 
critical view holds good, these nameless contributors 
to the Bible will be multiplied. The writer of this 
has had it more and more brought home to him in 
the course of his work that to think truly of Inspira- 
tion it should be thought of as acting through the 
mass—here weakly, there strongly, but yet in different 
degrees permeating the whole. It seems to him that 
St. Paul was fully conscious of this, or he would not 
have insisted so continually on the organic union of 
Christians: ‘even as we have many members in one 
body, and all the members have not the same office ; 
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and 
severally members one of another.’ 

The life of the Church is not only a corporate but 


xii Preface to the Third Edition. 


a continuous life. Every genuine expression of it in 
every age, including its retrospective verdicts upon 
the past, is entitled to respectful attention. From 
this point of view the discussions relating to the 
Canon, and the silent result which goes beyond the 
range of these discussions, claim our best study. But, 
after all, the well-spring from whence all that stream 
of life began to flow—nay, the secret sources in which 
it was generated—lie, so far as they are revealed to 
us, within the covers of the Bible. And this alone 
must make it the most precious of all the possessions 
of Christians. 

The writer had at one time thought of revising 
as well as he could the judgements expressed in this 
volume; but to do so would have involved consider- 
able delay, and he thinks that they are perhaps better 
left as they are, conditioned by the time at which they 
appeared. 


CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, 
December, 1895. 


PReEPAGH WO). REE. FIRST, ἘΤΩ͂Ν 


Tue Bampton Lectures are preached before an 
audience which has some parallels in this country 
and America, but few, if any, upon the Continent. 
It is a rare thing for the Continental theologian to 
be brought into such direct contact with the class of 
highly trained and intelligent laity who are engaged 
in the teaching of secular literature and science. We 
may count it as one of the happiest of English tradi- 
tions, and in fact as the main compensation for the 
backwardness of much of our theology proper, that 
this class has never ceased to take an active interest 
in all matters connected with religion. It is ready 
to listen even to what are practically monographs on 
theological subjects; and many of the best volumes 
which the series has produced have been more or less 
of this nature, 

The present lectures can lay no claim to the char- 
acter of a monograph. Their aim has been rather 
to furnish a general view which shall cover as far 


as possible the data, at once new and old, which go 


xiv Preface to the First Edition. 


to determine the conception which thoughtful men 
would form of the Bible. 

If it is thought that this is to attempt too much, 
and that a satisfactory treatment of all parts of the 
subject was not possible within the compass of eight 
lectures, the writer can only assent to the criticism. 
It seemed however to be more important that the 
subject should be presented, if only in outline, as 
a fairly complete and coherent whole, than to work 
out in detail any one of the parts. That can be done 
afterwards ; and in fact it is being done every day. 

Another drawback has been the limited time which 
is allowed for the preparation of the lectures. Be- 
tween the election of the Bampton Lecturer and the 
delivery of his first lecture is an interval of at most 
ten months. For one who holds, as the present 
writer does, a double office with double duties, this 
interval is curtailed: still further. In his case nearly 
three months more had to be deducted for illness, 
a loss which however was largely made up to him by 
the kind indulgence of his College. For the timely 
relief thus accorded to him he cannot be too grateful. 

All this time books came pouring from the press at 
a rate with which it was difficult to keep pace. Many 
of them were of high value, and of some he wishes 
that he could have made a more extended use. 
He hopes that his obligations in various direc- 
tions will have been sufficiently acknowledged. But 
he ought perhaps to single out in particular the 


Preface to the First Edition. XV 


Introductions of Driver and Cornill to the Old 
Testament and the third edition of Holtzmann’s 
Introduction to the New, with the works on the 
Canon by Ryle, Buhl, and Wildeboer in the one case, 
and by Zahn and Harnack in the other. In one 
instance he fears that he has done less than justice. 
The main reference to Dr. E. Kdnig in Lecture III 
consists in part of criticism; and this makes it all the 
more incumbent upon the writer to say that the lead- 
ing idea of this lecture, and indeed one of the leading 
ideas of the whole book, is to the best of his belief 
derived ultimately from Dr. K6nig. It is becoming 
almost a commonplace to say that our conception of 
what the Bible is should be drawn in the first instance | 
from what the Biblical writers say of themselves. 
This idea took a strong hold of the writer some years 
ago, as he believes indirectly rather than directly 
through the emphatic statement of it by Dr. Konig. 
Yet when he came to read the Offenbarungsbegriff 
des A. T., along with its independence and ability he 
could not help being struck by what seemed to be 
an element of arbitrariness and exaggeration. This 
however has been a diminishing quantity in later 
books by the same author, notably in his recent 
Introduction to the Old Testament, which he wishes 
had reached him a little earlier. 

The writer is conscious of having criticized most 
freely (especially in Lecture 1) some of those for whom 
he has the highest respect. This applies particularly 

b 


Xvi Preface to the First Edition. 


to some of the German scholars whose names de- 
servedly carry the greatest weight in England. There 
are none to whom he is himself more indebted; but 
he does not wish them to impose upon his countrymen 
by the weight of authority views which do not seem 
to be borne out by the evidence. 

The parts of these lectures which relate to the 
Old Testament should be taken with the qualification 
expressed on p. 119f. The writer cannot speak in 
this part so much at first hand as he can in the case 
of the New. If, in spite of this, the result seems to 
work out somewhat more positively in the former 
case than in the latter, this is due in part to the 
clear-cut form in which modern critical theories relat- 
ing to the Old Testament are presented. Perhaps 
also it would be true to say that in recent years 
stronger work upon the whole has been done upon 
the Old Testament than upon the New. 

In view of this body of Old Testament criticism the 
writer's own position is tentative and provisional. 
He does not think that the great revolution which 
seems to be expected in some quarters, from the Tell- 
el-Amarna tablets or otherwise, is probable; at the 
same time his impression is that the criticism of the 
near future is likely to be more conservative in its 
tendency than it has been, or at least to do fuller 
justice to the positive data than it has done. 

In regard to the New Testament he has tried to 
state the case as objectively as possible. He has thus 


Preface to the First Edition. xvii 


been led rather to understate than to overstate the 
results which seem to him to have been attained so 
far. But he believes that there is much still to be 
done; and he hopes most from the spirit which is 
not impatient for ‘results, which does not suppress 
or slur over difficulties in the critical view any more 
than in the traditional, which lays its plans broadly, 
and is determined to make good the lesser steps 
before it attempts the greater. 

Besides his large debt to books the writer is also 
under obligations to friends who have done him the 
kindness to read through the proofs as they were 
passing through the press. He owes much to the 
criticisms and suggestions which he has received in 
this way, especially from Dr. Plummer, Mr. Lock, and 
Mr. A. Ὁ. Headlam. He wishes that his book were 
better than it is; but he can truly say that in writing 
it he has gained for himself a deepened and a 
strengthened hold on the principles to which he has 
given imperfect expression. 

The Synopsis of Contents was issued separately at 
the time of the delivery of the lectures, and has been 
allowed to retain the form given to it for that purpose. 


MARCHFIELD, OXFORD, 
August, 1893. 


SYN@rSsis OF CONTENTS 


--ς--- 


EECTURE, ΤΕ 


THE HISTORIC CANON. 
ESTIMATE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY THE EARLY CHURCH. 


Subject and method of the proposed inquiry. Two lectures to be 
devoted to analysis of main points in the conception of the Canon ; 
the succeeding five to an attempt to sketch constructively the pro- 
cess by which that eee was reached; the last to retrospect 
and summary. : : ΤΡ το: 

Idea of a Canon Schad frre Ὁ. τ. to N. τι Two landmarks in 
the history of the N. T. Canon, about 400 a.p. and 200 A.D. _— pp. 4-6. 


I. Contents of N. T. (1) c. 400 A.D. Practically the same as our own 
over the greater part of Christendom. This result very partially due 
to Synodical decisions (African Synods of 393, 397, 419 [Council of 
Laodicea c. 363], Trullan Council of 692); far more in the West to the 
influence of the Vulgate, in the East to that of leading Churchmen 
(Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius, Gregory Nazianzen). 

Only considerable exception the Syrian Church which recognised 
no more than three (two) Epp. Cath. and rejected Apoc. These books 
wanting in Peshitto, but added in later Syriac Versions. pp. 6-12. 

Contents of N. T. (2) c. 200 a.D.: approximate date of Muratorian 
Fragment. Solid nucleus of four Gospels, thirteen Epp. Paul., Acts. 

Divergent views on this subject. It is questioned (i) that the Four 
Gospels were everywhere accepted ; (ii) that Epp. Paul. stood on an 
equal footing with Gospels and O. T.; (iii) that Acts formed part of 
the collection. In each case with but slight real support from the 


evidence. ; ae τς : : ~ Pp. 12-23. 
Writings struggling for ἜΗΝ to the ἜΝ τ ΒΕΕς τὶ [ο. all-but 
‘fixed— Heb, Jac., Apoc.—2 [3] Jo., Jud., 2 Pet. . ΠΝ ὌΡ᾽ 25: 20! 


Writings which obtain a partial footing but are disiodged: Evv., sec. 
Heb., sec. Aegypt., sec. Pet.—Epp. Clem., Barn.—Didaché, Pastor — 
Leucian Acts, Predicatio Petri, Acta Paul. et Thecl., &c.—Apoc. Pet. 

pp- 26-28. 


XX Synopsis of Contents. 


11. Properties ascribed to the Canonical Books. The N. T. is (1) a 
sacred book ; (2) on the same footing with O. T.—a proposition ques- 
tioned but true; (3) inspired by the Holy Spirit, or bearing the 
authority of Christ ;\(4) this inspiration is even ‘ verbal’ and extends 
to facts as well as doctrines ;((5) it carries with it a sort of perfection, 
completeness, infallibility; (6) the N. T. Scriptures are appealed to as 
(a) the rule of faith, (ὁ) the rule of conduct; (7) they are interpreted 
allegorically like a sacred book, and complaints are made of perverse 
interpretation. : ; : ; . pp. 23-42 

Yet along with this high doerine thane are occasional traces of (τ) 
the recognition of degrees of inspiration ; (2) a natural account of the 
origin of certain books (e.g. the Gospels). . : : - Ppp. 42-47. 


Ill. Criteria by which books were admitted to the New Testament. 
(1) Apostolic origin; (2) reception by the Churches; (3) conformity 
to established doctrine; (4) conformity to recognised history; 


(5) mystical significance of numbers. : : ον Ppp. 47-56. 
Note A.—The Canons of the ge Council, of Carthage, and of 
Laodicea. : . |.” pp. eo-em 
Note B. Darraribhes T hoe of the ‘Growth of the New Testament 
Canon. . ς : . pp. 61-63. 


Note C. ee Points ses τ the 4 jot : . Ppp. 64-65. 
Note D.—The use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria. 
Pp. 65-69. 


LECTURE II. 


THE HISTORIC CANON. 
ESTIMATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE FIRST CENTURY 
OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, 


The critical period in the history of the Bible is the forming of 
Canon of O. T. Our first clear view of an O. T. Canon is obtained in 
the century which follows the Birth of Christ. For this we have 
Philo, N. T., Josephus, supplemented by the Talmud. . pp.70-72. 


1. Properties ascribed to O. T. in these writings. O.T. (1) is a sacred 
book ; (2) is inspired by God—difference in this respect between Philo 
and Josephus; (3) has a normative value; (4) is interpreted allegori- 
cally; (5) prophetically determines the course of future events ; 
(6) has a minute perfection which implies, at least in the case οἵ: 
Philo, an inspiration that might be called ‘verbal.’ . - Ppp. 72-90. 


II. Contents of O. T. Many other religious books of Jewish origin 
in circulation during first century besides the Canonical. Distinction 
between so-called Palestinian and Alexandrian Canon not so much 


Synopsis of Contents. Xxi 


geographical as between popular and learned or official usage. Both 
Philo and Josephus have wide views of the range of inspiration and 
yet treat the Canonical Books only as authoritative. So too in N. T., 

though there are traces of acquaintance with Apocrypha. With 
Tings and the Rabbis of the end of first century the Canon is 
really complete. There is however still some hesitation as to certain 
books, especially Cant., Eccles., Esther. . - ὃ pp. 90-98. 


Divisions of Jewish Canon point back to circumstances of its origin. 
Traceable from soon after 132 B.c., and correspond to so many stages 
in the formation of the Canon: (1) the Law, 444 B.c.; (2) the Pro- 
phets, probably in third ial ἘΠ": 7 the ee ae or Kethubim, 
c. 100 B.C. : ; : pp. 98-105. 


III. Criteria ae which books were admitted to the Canon. History 
of the word ‘Apocrypha’: (i) milder Jewish sense,=not read in 
public ; (ii) stronger sense, increasingly common in Christian circles, 
=‘heretical.’ Discussions in the Jewish Schools mainly concerned 
with fitness of books for public reading. In Philo, Josephus and the 
Talmud the leading positive principle was Prophecy. The closing of 
the Canon supposed to coincide with cessation of prophecy. Sym- 
bolism of numbers as applied to O. T. : : é Ppp. 105-115. 


Before entering on larger inquiry it is right to explain the attitude 
adopted to the criticism of O. T. The critical theories come with 
great force, though they seem open to qualification in certain direc- 
tions. They are assumed here hypothetically and provisionally, as 
a minimum. The data which they supply for a doctrine of inspiration 
cannot well be less and may be more. Tyee points in the critical 
position. . : . . : . . pp. 115-122. 


Note A.—On the Date of the Formation of the Jewish Canon. Ῥ. 123. 


LECTURE Ii. 


THE GENESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE PROPHETIC 
AND HISTORICAL BOOKS. 


Belief in Inspiration postulates belief in a Personal, or in Hebrew 
phrase, ‘Living’ God. Granted such a God, and it is not strange that 
He should put Himself in communication with man. pp. 124-128. 


(2) The Prophets. The prophetical inspiration is typical of all inspi- 
ΠΝ and is the form in which its working can be most easily traced. 
Yet the Hebrew prophets are not without large analogies in other 
religions. Examples from the Books of Samuel and Judges. The 
propheticorder. Prophecy as a profession, with professional failings ; 
half-hearted prophets and false prophets. . : ς ΡΡ. 128-135. 


Xxii Synopsts of Contents. 


A comparative glimpse of the religion of a kindred race supplied 
by the Moabite Stone. This has much in common with the religion 
of Israel, but it has its dark side, human sacrifice and consecrated 
licentiousness. The problem is, How did the prophetic religion 
escape this immixture of evil? Most easily answered by what we 
call Inspiration, 2. e. the hypothetical cause of that which is distinctive 
and superior in the religion of the Bible. . t - Pp. 135-140. 


There is a ‘purpose of God according to selection’ (Rom. ix. 11): 
among nations, Israel; in Israel, the prophetic order; among the 
prophetic order, the higher prophets are chosen to be organs of 
revelation. Yet the lower prophets, and even the so-called ‘false 
prophets,’ also had their function. : é : ὃ pp. 140-143. 


Characteristics of the higher prophecy. The prophets only in a 
secondary degree statesmen or social reformers; before all things 
preachers of religion. . 4 : 5 : 2 - PP. 143-145. 


Whence did they derive their authority? They claimed to speak 
in the name of God. We believe this claim to be true; that in 
a real objective sense, God did cause the prophets to say what He 
willed should be said. . : : : : ξ : ῬΡ. 145-147. 


(ὁ [Εογ these reasons: (1) the strong assurance of the prophets 
~themselves, and the clear testimony as to their own consciousness 
which their writings reveal to us; (2) the general recognition of the 
claim by their contemporaries; (3) the remarkable consistency in so 
long a line of prophets, not easily compatible with hallucination ; 
(4) the difficulty of accounting for the prophets’ teaching as the 
product of ordinary causes, whether in (i) the prophets themselves, 
(ii) their race, (iii) the constitution of the human mind; (5) by the 
immense permanent significance and value of the prophetic teaching. 
PP- 147-155: 

Il. The Historical Books: called by the Jews ‘The Former Pro- 
phets.’ The earlier historians of Israel for the most part prophets. 
To understand the way in which they worked we must get rid of 
modern associations, and remember (1) that Hebrew history-writing 
is as a rule anonymous and involved no idea of literary property; (2) 
that it was carried on not so much by individuals as by successions 
of individuals often belonging to the same school or order; (3) that 
the histories were propagated by single copies which each possessor 
might enlarge or annotate. . : ; 7 : 3 ῬΡ. 155-160. 


Where lies the inspiration of the Historical Books? Double 

. function of the historian, to narrate and to interpret. Hebrew 
narrative varies in value: it has some special merits, but also some 
defects. The inspiration lies rather in the interpretation of the 
Divine purpose running through the history. . ; pp. 160-165. 


Note A.—Modern Prophets. 2 weit Lel 40" he) i ppaweG=mGee 


Synopsis of Contents. Xxiii 


LECTURE TV: 


THE GENESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
THE LAW AND THE HAGIOGRAPHA. 


I. The Law. Different estimate of the Law at different periods: 
(1) with the Jews; (2) inN. T.; (3) by modern criticism. But though 
from the critical point of view it may be better to start from the 
Prophets, the work of Moses is prior both in time and in importance. 

pp. 168-173. 

In the Law as it has come down to us there are three elements: 
(1) an element derived from Moses himself, indeterminate in detail 
but fundamental; and the development of this (2) by prophets, (3) by 
priests. The cultus not to be undervalued. Though a temporary 
system, it secured the devoted attachment of many psalmists, and 
embodied principles which find their final realization in Christianity. 
It was also a safeguard to the revelation. . : : pp. 173-188. 

Il. The Hagiographa. Inspiration of the writers of these books 
not primary like that of lawgivers and prophets, but mediate and 
secondary. Expressive of the intense hold which the principles 
implanted by lawgivers and prophets took on other classes. A pro- 
phetic nation. ς: : : : 2 : : : pp- 188-101. 

The Psalms. Date of the Psalter important, but as yet sub judice. 
Made up of a number of smaller collections; analogous to our hymn- 
books. Prophetic element in Psalter: perhaps more literary than 
strictly prophetic, but an instance of the ay in which different 
forms of inspiration shade off into each other. Permanent signi- 
ficance of Psalter as the classical expression of religious emotion. 

Pp. 191-199. 

The Wisdom-Literature. The ‘wise men’ as a class by the side of 
prophets and priests. Proverbs, like the Psalter, highly composite ; 
made up of collections which contain the contributions of many 
minds: cc. xxv-xxix probably earliest, and cc. 1. 7-ix latest, at 
least of main divisions. We thus get an ascending scale of doctrine. 
The Wisdom-teaching in its basis common to Israel with surrounding 
nations, esp. Edom. Shrewd observations on life. These with Heb. 
centre more and more in religion, and at last rise from detached 
comments on conduct and morals to a comprehensive view of Divine 
Wisdom as seen in the creation and ordering of the world: a con- 
ception momentous in its influence upon later theology, the foundation 
of the Christian doctrine of the Logos. : : ὃ ῬΡ-. 199-204. 

Job. Struggles with ἃ problem—the sufferings of the righteous—to 
which it does not give a complete solution. Still marks a great 
advance. Full of deep lessons which are not the less prompted by 


XXiv Synopsis of Contents. 


God because they are reached in natural sequence. The central 
impulse comes from that vital grasp upon God and religion which 
marks the presence and energy of the Spirit. . : PP. 204-207. 


Ecclesiastes. Pessimism, but religious pessimism. Well that such 
a book should be included in the Canon. The saving clauses in 
Ecclesiastes psychologically probable and not interpolations. 

pp. 208-211. 

Song of Songs. As now understood, an idyll of faithful human 
love, and nothing more. Not quoted in N. T. or inspired in any 
sense in which the word has been hitherto used. Still a Providential 
purpose may have been served by its inclusion in the Canon. Another 
proof of the catholicity of Scripture. And the associations which have 
gathered round its eae τύχα to some extent its mystical ap- 
plication. : ; : pp. 211-212. 


Esther. The most - doubtful δὲν in the ΠΕΡ Jewish rather than 
Christian ; like Cant. not quoted in N. T. Gained its place mainly by 
Beguiesconue in Jewish usage. . : : : pp. 212-214. 

Daniel. The use of ancient names became common in later Jewish 
literature : an innocent device (cp. esp. Eccles.) growing out of (i) the 
absence of any idea of literary property, (ii) prophetic instinct seeking 
to clothe itself with authority in a non-prophetic age. Daniel is not 
to be taken as history, but that it had a really prophetic character is 
proved by its influence upon Christianity. . : - Pp. 214-220. 


Note A.—The Pre-Mosaic History in the Pentateuch. Pp. 221-222. 
Note B.—The Religious Value of the Book of Esther. Pp. 222-223. 


Note C.—The Origin and Character of Pseudonymous Literature 
among the Jews. . : . Ξ ἕ . Ξ Ξ ῬΡ. 224-225. 


LECTURES. 


THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A COLLECTION 
OF SACRED BOOKS. 


I. Transition from Oral Teaching to Written. This transition, how- 
ever momentous in its consequences, made no difference in the 
essential character of the teaching: it was just as authoritative before 
as after. . ἢ : : Ppp. 226-227. 

When did the transition are eee On the critical view, (i) for 
the Prophets, with Amos and Hosea, ¢ 750 B.c.; (ii) for the Law, 
with Deuteronomy, c. 621 B.c. ‘ : : pp. 227-228. 

1. For Prophecy the date assigned may perhaps be accepted, 
though much prophetic writing in the form of history had preceded, 
and though there is nothing tentative about the earliest written 
prophecy either as literature or as religious teaching. pp. 228-231. 


Synopsis of Contents. XXV 


2. For the Law there is really a chain of connected events: 
behind Pent. is Deut.; behind Deut. the Book of the Covenant; 
behind the Book of the Covenant the historic tradition of Sinai 
preserved in twofold form and pointing far backwards. The idea 
which underlies the Canon is present from the first. Ppp. 231-2306. 

11. Transmission and Collecting of Sacred Books. Transmission of 
legal writings comparatively regular, through priests; that of pro- 
phetic writings more precarious, through disciples. Gradual growth 
of reading public. The synagogues. Concurrence of causes which 
led to fully formed Canon, of Law (444 B.c.), of Prophets (third 
century B.C.). . . - 5 : : 5 5 Pp. 236-247. 

Collection of eee (i) of Wisdom Books; (ii) of Psalter. 
Remaining books probably added by 100 B.c. The work of scribes. 

PP- 247-253- 

III. Final Determination of O. T. Canon. Principles followed in 
this. Consciousness of cessation of prophecy. Criteria applied 
somewhat vague. Probable reasons for inclusion and exclusion of 
particular books. . Ξ : : PP. 253-257. 

The Canon of history τὶ fie Cangas of doctrine practically 
identical: a common bond among Christians. Some Deutero- 
canonical Books (Ecclus., Wisd.) make a claim, which may be 
allowed, for a certain degree of secondary inspiration. _ pp. 257-262. 
ΙΝ, Conception of Inspiration associated with the Canon. That a laxer 
view of inspiration prevailed at first, appears not only from such 
claims as these, but also from the state of the text of the LXX 
Version. The interpolations in this (many of them included in our 
Apocrypha) show with what freedom it was treated. ΡΡ- 262-263. 

As the Canon is more clearly defined the view of inspiration 
becomes stricter. Attributes which originally belonged to certain 
books, or parts of books, extended to the whole O.T. Idea of 
plenary or verbal inspiration derived from Law and Prophecy. 
Attributes of prophets speaking or writing prophetically assumed to 
exist where they are not writing prophetically. Need of distinctions. 

Pp. 263-269. 

Note A.—The inferior Limit for the Date of the Psalter. pp. 270-273. 

Note B.—The use of the term Deuterocanonical in the Roman Church. 


PP. 273-279. 


LEGTURE. V1. 


THE GENESIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 


I. THE Gospets. 1. Their Composition. A starting-point supplied 
by Luke i. 1-4, written probably 75-80 a.p. Presupposes much 


ΧΧΥῚ Synopsis of Contents. 


previous collecting of materials, oral and written. Did these include 
our First and Second Gospels? Evidence of Papias. ΡΡ- 277-281. 

The Synoptic problem extremely complicated and difficult, and 
has not yet reached a solution. It may, however, be safely affirmed 
that the mass of Synoptic material is older than 70 a.p. Because of 
(i) the number of allusions to a state of things which came to an end 
at or before that date; (ii) the compact and consistent character of 
the terminology of the Gospels, almost unaffected by later develop- 
ments; (iii) direct indications of the date of composition as not far 
on either side the Fall of Jerusalem. . : : : pp. 281-293. 


Peculiar conditions under which the earliest forms of Gospel were 
written and copied. Signs of great activity on each side of the 
year 70. Functions of editor and copyist confused. Freedom in the 
handling of the text. Number of early interpolations. pp. 294-2908. 


2. Early History, 80-140 A.D. Freedom in treatment of text con- 
tinues. Origin of Western Text. Phenomena of quotations in 
Apostolic Fathers. How accounted for. Catechizing. Prominence 
given to ‘Words of the Lord.’ . 5 5 - : PP. 298-304. 


From ¢, 125 A.D. the Four Gospels begin to stand out. (i) Evidence 
of Tatian, c. 165-170. (ii) Heracleon’s commentary on the Fourth 
Gospel. Use of this Gospel by Valentinians and probably by 
Basilides. (iii) Supposed trace of Four Gospels in Hermas. (iv) Use 
of Four Gospels in Ev. Pet. probable, though marked by freedom 
characteristic of the period. . : : 5 : 5 PP- 304-314. 


3. Period 140-200 a.p. Use of Canonical Gospels becomes more 
exclusive. Influence of public reading. At first the Canonical 
Gospels were primarily histories, though religious histories; but 
towards the end of this period they are treated more as Sacred 
Books. The potentiality of this is contained in the name ‘ Gospels’ 
But St. Luke’s preface has all the character of a history: the 
sacredness is derived from the subject-matter. . : ῬΡ. 315-318. 


11. THe Acts. Naturally goes with Third Gospel. Here too the 
main questions are still open. Criticism of the Acts has been almost 
entirely in German hands, and has some Pee defects. An unreal 
standard applied. . : : : : - ῬΡ. 318-320. 

Four charges made against the te (i) ) that he did not under- 
stand the antagonisms He the Apostolic age; (ii) that his statements 
conflict with Epp, Paul. ; (iii) that the Acts of St. Peter are artificially 
balanced against the Acts of St. Paul; (iv) that the differences 
between St. Paul and the other Apostles are minimized. Much exag- 
geration in all of these, and even where true they do not detract 
seriously from the value of the book as history. : PP. 320-329. 

Acts certainly composite like the Gospels, and the first step must 
be to discriminate sources. Valuable data supplied by Prof. Ramsay. 


PP- 329-330. 


Synopsis of Contents. XXVil 


LECTURE VII 


THE GENESIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
THE EPISTLES AND APOCALYPSE. 


The Apostolic age a great manifestation of the supernatural. The 
outpouring of the Spirit a reality of which the evidence meets us 
everywhere. It has left a permanent deposit in the N. T. 

PP. 331-334- 

I. Tue Episties. 1. Their Origin. The Epistles arose naturally out 
of the wants of the newly founded Gentile Churches. There was some 
precedent for giving to such writings a theological character. This 
was largely developed by St. Paul. Epistles attributed to him 
probably all genuine. . : : PP- 334-343. 

Epp. Cath. formed upon ‘is model Aa argument against the 
early date often assigned to Ep. Jac. Bearing of Prof. Ramsay’s 
researches on τ Pet. Genuineness of 2 Pet. very doubtful; but 
also doubted in early Church. Effect of this upon the Canon. 

SH PP- 344-350. 

2.\ Their Inspiration. St. Paul strongly claims what we call in- 
spiration (Gal. i. 11-17, 1 Cor. ii. &c.). Yet his inspiration consistent 
with individual characteristics and some weaknesses: it has degrees. 
Other Apostles wrote with full authority. . : ‘ PP. 350-359. 

3. Their Early History. Reading of Epp. in public worship. 
Collection of Epp. Paul. before 117 a.p. On same level with other 
books by end of century. From the first invested with all the 
personal authority of Apostles. . : : : PP- 359-369. 

II. THe Apocatypse. Recent theories which ascribe a composite 
origin to this book seem to be giving way to a reaction in favour 
of its unity. Question of date still outstanding: a.p. 69 or 95? Many 
points in the problem wait solution. . : : : Pp- 369-374. 

Apocalypse a prophetic work, and claims the full measure of 
prophetic inspiration. This is not inconsistent with the fact that 
some of the symbolism in which it is clothed has proved to be 


transitory. .  . dul 2s ἐν a Sh Leo Rpp se saS oars. 
Note A.—A new Theory of the Origin of the Catholic Epistles. 

PP- 379-382. 

Note B.—On the Genuineness of 2 St. Peter. . P pp. 382-385. 

Note C.— The Claim to ρον in certain as of the Apostolic 

Fathers. . ς ; : p- 386. 


Note D.—£Early Patristic Gouna on I ἘΣ Vil. 10, 12, 25, 40. 
PP- 387-390. 


XXVili Synopsis of Contents, 


LECTURE WHI. 


RETROSPECT AND RESULTS. 
TRADITIONAL AND INDUCTIVE THEORIES OF INSPIRATION COMPARED. 


I. Two competing theories of inspiration: (1) the traditional; (2) 
the inductive or critical. The inspiration implied by the latter quite 
as real and quite as fundamental as that implied by the former. It 
is possible to trace the links by which the one has passed into the other. 

PP- 391-401. 

II. Yet the measure of inspiration is not only the consciousness of 
the persons inspired. We must add to this the proofs of a Higher 
Providence at work in the Bible. This is apparent (i) in the impulse 
which led to the committal of prophetic utterances to writing, and 
the way in which the occasional letters of Apostles supply a basis 
for Christian theology; (11) in the course of Messianic Prophecy ; 
(iii) in that ordering of things by which certain books or parts of 
books are capable τὶ application by analogy in senses which did not 
originally belong tothem. . 5 : : - ῬΡ. 402-406. 

Ill. How far did our Lord sanction citer view? There are two 
classes of passages: (i) some showing supreme insight into and 
sovereign command over the principles of revelation; (ii) others 
in which the current view is allowed to pass unchallenged. i 

ΡΡ. 406-414. 

But apart from any deeper explanation which may be given of 
these, (i) there is in Revelation what may be called a Law of Par- 
simony, by which no revelation is given to any age but such as is 
suited to its wants and capacity, and this law governs the teaching 
of our Lord Himself; (ii) we must expect to find some analogy 
between the method of God and of Christ in revelation and in the 
ordinary government of the world. It is a law of the Divine action 
that intellectual truth comes late in time. There is a chain of natural 
connexion between the operation of the Eternal Word, the character 
of the Incarnate Word, and the constitution of the Written Word. 
Vindication of the argument from analogy . ; : ΡΡ. 414-431. 


Note A.—On St. Matthew xit. 40 and St. John x. 35. PP- 432-433- 


Synopsis of Contents. ΧΧΙΧ 


APPENDIX. 1. 


SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
(Oct. 21, 1894) . ; : : : ‘ ᾿ . PP. 435-446. 


ἈΕΘΡΕΣΝΙΙΧΟ II: 
ΟΗΕΚΟΝΟΙΟΟΘΊΟΑΙ, TaBLe oF Data FoR THE History oF 


THE CANON . : : : : : : : - PP. 447-467. 


LOIS oc ik a a τ τς : . PP. 469-477. 


ἴν Ξιθ  δ δ Eoonk: 


THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE NEW 
GESTAMENTC BY THE EARLY CHURCH: 


‘Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction, which is in righteousness.’ 
Ἐ 7772. in. 16, 


My subject is our Christian Bible. I propose to 
ask, and to do what in me lies to answer, the question, 
What it is which gives our Bible its hold and authority 
over us, and how the conception of that authority 
grew and took shape in the Christian consciousness. 

We must recognise the fact that a change has 
come over the current way of thinking on this subject 
of the authority of the Bible. The maxim that the 
Bible must be studied ‘like any other book’ has been 
applied. For good or for evil, the investigations 
to which it has given rise are in full swing, and it 
would be hopeless to attempt to stop them, even if 
it were right to do so. Truth has this advantage, 
that any method that is really sound in itself can 
only help to confirm it. 

It was a natural reaction which caused the first 
throwing open of the gates to perfectly free and 


unfettered inquiry to lead, or seem to lead, to some- 
B 
Ζ2 


. 


2 1. The New Testament tn the Early Church. 


what extreme consequences. As at the close of the 
Middle Ages there was a rush of the human spirit, 
long confined in what were felt to be narrow channels, 
in the direction of Naturalism in all its forms; so 
now again that there is a new removing of barriers, 
we cannot be surprised if the current sets through 
them strongly, and, as at first sight it may seem, 
destructively. 

We know now, I think it may be said, the utmost 
limits to which destruction can go. It is impossible 
for any theory that can be started in the future to 
be more thoroughly Naturalistic than many of those 
which we have already before us. But again there 
is beginning to be a certain reaction, a certain re- 
constructing of the old edifice upon newer lines. 
When once it was decided that the Bible was to be 
examined like any other book, it lay near at hand 
to assume that it must be like any other book; and 
this assumption has consciously or unconsciously 
influenced many of those who have taken up the 
study of it. And yet it is, to say the least, pre- 
mature. It is better to let the Bible tell its own 
story, without forcing either way. Let us by all 
means study it if we will like any other book, but 
do not let us beg the question that it must be wholly 
like any other book, that there is nothing in it dis- 
tinctive and unique. Let us give a fair and patient 
hearing to the facts as they come before us, whether 
they be old or whether they be new. 

In order to do this in regard to the Bible, it is 
necessary, as in most other inquiries of a like kind, 


Subject and Method proposed. 3 


not only to go straight to the origins and form such 
conceptions as we are able about them, but also to 
see what conceptions were formed as a matter of fact 
in the period immediately subsequent to them. In 
order to determine how much of our present ideas 
is valid the first thing to be done is to trace them 
back to their roots. 

The authority of the Bible is derived from what 
is commonly called its ‘Inspiration.’ This then is the 
subject for our more immediate consideration. I pro- 
pose that we should examine together the history 
of this doctrine during its really formative period, 
with a view to ascertaining how far it rests upon a 
permanent basis apart from tradition. The formative 
period of which I speak may be said roughly to close 
about the year 400 a.p. The modifications which 
the doctrine has undergone since that date are of 
minor importance, until we come to our own time, 
when it is thrown again into the crucible, with what 
result remains to be seen. 


I have thought that it would be conducive to 
clearness and soundness of procedure if 1 were to 
endeavour to combine in these lectures the analytic 
method with the synthetic; first starting from our 
terminus the year 400, and setting out very briefly 
some of the landmarks which meet us as we work our 
way backwards to the origins; and then conversely 
beginning with the origins and seeking to work, 
forwards with more of an attempt at construction. 
I believe that two lectures will be found enough for 

B 2 


4 2. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


the first half of this process, which will deal mainly 
with facts and avoid for the most part all that is 
speculative and controversial in the interpretation of 
those facts. The next five lectures will be devoted 
to the attempt to follow the genesis of the doctrine ; 
and the last lecture will naturally take the form of 
retrospect and summary. In both cases the distinction 
of Old and New Testament makes a dividing line 
of itself. 


When we approach the question of the Canon of 
the New Testament we have to remember that the 
conception of a Canon was not a new one. There 
was a Canon of the Old Testament before there 
could be a Canon of the New. The process of 
the forming of a Canon of the New Testament is 
really the process by which the writings of the New 
Testament came to be placed on the same footing 
with those of the Old. It may be true that. the 
Canon of the Old Testament was not complete until 
the first century of our era. That is one of the 
questions on which we shall have to touch; but it is 
really a question of detail, and of subordinate detail. 
We only have to look at the way in which the 
Old Testament is quoted and used in the New Testa- 
ment to see at once that the conception of a Canon 
was already there—not tentative and struggling, but 
fully formed and universally accepted in all those 
circles out of which the New Testament itself sprang. 
Whether Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs or 
Esther were rightly included in the Canon might be, 


Subject and Method proposed. 5 


and no doubt was, an open question. But that did 
not in the least affect the great mass of the books, 
the Pentateuch, or the Prophets, or the Psalms. 
The authority ascribed to these books in the New 
Testament could not well be higher: nor could, 
upon the face of it,a more exalted dignity be sought 
for the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists 
than that they should be placed upon the same level 
with them. The whole question as to the nature 
and kind of authority claimed for the books of either 
Testament will occupy us later. All that it is well 
to bear in mind at starting when we begin, as we are 
for the moment doing, from what is really the end 
of the process, is that so far as the New Testament 
was concerned the idea of a Canon was not a new idea. 
In the case of the Old Testament it was a new idea. 
The mould itself had to be formed as well as the body 
of writings to be fitted in the mould. In the case 
of the New Testament the mould, the fully formed 
conception, was already in existence, and the only 
question was, what writings should be put into it and 
why they should be put there. 

The unsatisfactory character of the method which 
we are now pursuing would be apparent at once, if it 
were meant to be the dominant method of our inquiry. 
What we want is to realize to ourselves imaginatively 
the genetic process by which the conception of a Canon 
grew, and the conception of certain writings as belong- 
ing to it. For the present we take the results of this 
process for granted. Only for the sake of clearness 
and in order to have certain fixed points well set before 


6 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


our minds, we start with the cut and dry notion of a 
Canon and Canonical Books, and we seek to mark out 
some of the salient features in its history. 


In so doing, we may endeavour (1) to note some of 
the main landmarks of growth and change in regard 
to the extent of the New Testament Canon; (II) to 
ascertain what was meant by the Canon, or, in other 
words, what special properties were ascribed to the 
books included in it; (III) to discover the grounds on 
which some books were included in it, and others not. 


I. Roughly and broadly speaking, there are two 
main stages in the history of the New Testament 
Canon. By the year 400 we may regard the New 
Testament as practically fixed in the form in which we 
now have it. It was not fixed in any strict sense. No 
oecumenical council had as yet pronounced upon its 
limits. In fact we may say that at no time was sucha 
decision ever pronounced at all effectively. It is true 
that the Quinisextine or Trullan Council of 692, itself 
recognised only by the Greeks and not by the Latins, 
sanctioned in a wholesale way the Acts of two local 
Synods, one of which (that of Carthage in 419') actually 


1 The Synod of Carthage of 419 is the last of a series of African 
Councils over which hangs some little obscurity. At the first, which 
was held at Hippo in 393, St. Augustine was present as presbyter; 
at the second and third, which were held at Carthage under the 
presidency of Aurelius, bishop of that city, he was present as bishop ; 
in all three he was probably the moving spirit. Each of the later 
councils ratified the canons of the earlier. At one or other of them a 
canon was passed prohibiting the reading of any but canonical books 


The New Testament about 400 A.D. 4 


contained and the other (that of Laodicea about the 
year 3631) was supposed at the date of the Trullan 
Council to contain lists of the sacred books, and that 
it sanctioned also the so-called Apostolic Canons 
which contain a list, and no less than three lists put 
forward by leading Fathers. But the lists in question 
are not identical’. The lists of Athanasius and the 
Council of Carthage include, while those of Gregory 
Nazianzen, Amphilochius of Iconium *, and the Council 
of Laodicea omit, the Apocalypse ; and Amphilochius 
speaks doubtfully about the four smaller Catholic 
Epistles. The Apostolic Canons are still more di- 
vergent, not only omitting the Apocalypse, but adding 
the two Epistles of Clement. No attempt is made to 
harmonize these discrepancies. 

But really synodical decisions had less to do with 
the final constitution of the New Testament Canon 
than the drift of circumstances set in motion by indi- 
(Ut praeter scripturas canonicas nthil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine 
divinarum scripturarum), and a list of these was given, but it is not 
quite certain at which. Augustine refers (Ep. xiv. 3 ad Quintianum) to 
a decision on the subject of the Canon at the Council of 397, but his 
language would be satisfied if this was not a new decision, but an old 
one repeated and ratified. On the whole subject see especially 
Zahn, Gesch. d. Neutest. Kanons, ii. 246 ff. 

* On the date of this Synod see especially Westcott, Canon, p. 432, 
ed. 5; Zahn, ii. 194-196. 

* See Additional Note A: Zhe Canons of the Quinisextine Council, 
of Carthage, and of Laodicea. 

5 Dr. Westcott refers the lists of Gregory and Amphilochius to the 
influence of Eusebius (. 1216 in the Church, p. 167). He would make 
the omission of the Apocalypse the characteristic distinction between 


the Canon of Constantinople derived from Eusebius and that of 
Alexandria (Zézd. p. 165). 


8 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


vidual leaders of the Church. The Synod of Carthage 
doubtless had an authority which was not confined to 
Africa. Provision was made that its resolutions should 
be communicated to Boniface, the contemporary bishop 
of Rome; and the fact of its being, along with Sardica, 
the only Western Council mentioned in the Trullan 
Canon shows that it carried especial weight. Still 
the West owes the form of its New Testament 
probably more to the gradual predominance of the 
Vulgate. By degrees Jerome's version drove out all 
others. And this version embodied the tradition of 
the East; so that East and West fell happily into 
line together '. 

And when we turn to the Eastern Canon itself, 
there we see individual influence at work rather than 
any corporate action. The Canon as we have it 
arose through the agreement of a few leading au- 
thorities. The growth of controversy had turned 
men’s minds to the standard of final appeal, and 
accordingly most of the great Church leaders in the 
fourth century put forth Canons. Those of Atha- 
nasius and Epiphanius agree exactly with our own 
not only in contents but in the order of the books. 
Those of Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory Nazi- 
anzen differ from it only by the omission of the 
Apocalypse. 

Of all these lists that of Cyril of Jerusalem is the 
earliest. And it is natural to connect this with the 
fact that in all alike the group of Catholic Epistles 


1 The Carthaginian list however differed from Jerome’s only in 
the order of the books. 


The New Testament about 400 4.0. 9 


is headed) by %the ‘Epistle of St.\ Jathes: . In no 
Church would it be so likely to have that place 
assigned to it as in the Church of Jerusalem. So 
that we are tempted to conjecture that the Catholic 
Epistles were first brought together as a complete 
group in that Church?. If we were inclined to 
pursue the conjecture a step further, we might go 
on to connect it with the library which Alexander, 
bishop of Jerusalem, had founded there in the pre- 
ceding century*. The founding of this library fell 
just at that critical moment when the sacred books 
were being transferred from the smaller rolls of 
papyrus, which seldom held more than a single 
work, to the larger codices of vellum shaped like 
our present books, in which it was usual to com- 
bine a number of cognate texts and where they 
soon acquired a definite order. 

The only considerable exception to the unanimity 
which reigned as a whole throughout the East was 
the Church of Syria. By Syria is meant especially 
the regions stretching to the N., N.E., and N.W. of 
Antioch, for the tradition of Palestine is wholly 
Greek. The characteristic features of the Syrian 
Canon are the recognition of three only of the 
Catholic? Epistles, Sts James, 1 Sti Peter, andr St. 
John, and the rejection of the Apocalypse. This is 

* Cf. Studia Biblica, iii. 253. 

* There is reason to think that the great libraries (e.g. of Pamphilus 
at Caesarea, of Cassiodorus at Vivarium, of Benedict Biscop at Wear- 
mouth and Jarrow, of Egbert at York, and Alcuin at Tours, &c.) had 


an effect on the course of literary history which should be more closely 
investigated. 


10 7. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


the Canon of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Severi- 
anus of Gabala'. Theodore of Mopsuestia and his 
follower Junilius go a step further and reject also 
the Epistle of St. James. The limits to the pre- 
valence of the Syrian Canon westwards are well 
marked by Amphilochius of Iconium, who mentions 
both traditions without deciding between them so far 
as the Catholic Epistles are concerned, but asserting 
that the majority of suffrages are against the Apoca- 
lypse. 

But in the Syrian Church, as in the Latin-speaking 
Churches, the most potent influence, so far as general 
usage was concerned, was no doubt the vernacular 
version, commonly called the Peshitto, which held 
the field wherever Syriac was spoken, just as Je- 
rome’s version did in the West. The Peshitto from 
the first contained only three Catholic Epistles, St. 
James, 1 St. Peter, and 1 St. John. It has recently 
been proved, chiefly by the researches of Dr. Gwynn 
of Dublin®, that the four remaining Epistles, and we 
may now perhaps add the Apocalypse, were first in- 
cluded in the so-called Philoxenian version of the year 
508, which served as the basis for a further revision 
by Thomas of Harkel (or Heraclea in Cyrrhesticé), 
known as the Harclean version in 616. But by this 
time the Syrian Church was broken up into three 


* Ap. Cosmas Indicopleustes (Zahn, Gesch. d. KX. ii. 23). 

® Transactions of Roy. Irish Acad. xxvii. p. 288 ff.; Hermathena, 
1890, p. 281 ff.; arts. ‘Polycarpus’ and ‘Thomas Harklensis’ in Dzcé. 
Chr. Biog. iv. 432 f., 1017-1020; and for the Apocalypse, letter in the 
Academy, June 18, 1892. 


The New Testament about 400 A.D. II 


mutually antagonistic bodies; and as the versions in 
question were both Monophysite in their origin, and 
in the first instance perhaps intended for private 
rather than for public use, their circulation must have 
been limited. “As late as the middle of the sixth 
century the merchant-theologian Cosmas Indicopleustes 
refers to the usage of the Syrian Church as recog- 
nising only three Epistles; and far down into the 
Middle Ages the list of the Nestorian bishop Ebed 
Jesu does not exceed this number. What this means 
is just that the usage of a Church is determined by 
its Bible, and the Syriac Bible happens to have 
been translated just at that stage in the history 
of the local Canon when three only of the Catholic 
Epistles had an established footing, while the rest 
were still outside though beginning to knock for 
admittance. 

The end of the fourth century was a time of con- 
solidation and ratification of existing usages. But 
along with the ratification of books which had made 
good their title there was a corresponding elimina- 
tion of others which were not so fortunate. Here 
again the fourth century, or at least the latter half 
of it, was not the real period of struggle. It did 
little more than register results already secured. A 
scholar like Jerome might study apocryphal works, 
but rather as literary curiosities than as claimants 
for a place in the Canon. And the noble volumes 
(like Codd. Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus) which have 
come down to us from the fourth and fifth centuries 
might still give a lingering harbourage to books no 


12 J, The New Testament in the Early Church. 


longer recognised; but this was only because they 
were copied from older originals and so perpetuated 
the conditions of a bygone time. 


We may now turn the page and glance at the 
more stirring movements of that elder time. Once 
more we take a rough date, the year 200 a.D 
This is approximately the date of the so-called 
Muratorian Fragment, the oldest list of the Books 
of the New Testament, which if not exactly typical 
or normal is not far removed from the general 
usage. This usage, we may say, had a solid nucleus 
—the four Gospels, the Acts, and thirteen Epistles of 
St. Paul. To these we might add for the greater 
part of Christendom, though the evidence does not 
quite permit us to say for the whole, 1 St. Peter and 
Et. John. 

Let us pause for a moment on this solid nucleus 
before we proceed to speak of other books the 
position of which was more tentative. We are con- 
fronted at the outset by conflicting views. One of 
the most energetic and original of living theologians 
has recently put forward the contention that the 
Canon as such, so far as there was a Canon, sprang 
suddenly into existence about the year 170. In the 
time of Justin (¢ 150 A.D.) it is non-existent. In 
the time of Irenaeus, thirty years later, it is in full 
strength. Therefore it must have grown up in the 
interval. And in fact the formation of a Canon at 
that date was one of a series of deliberate measures 
taken by the allied Churches of Asia Minor and 


The New Testament about 200 A.D. 13 


Rome to check the inroads of Gnosticism or Mon- 
tanism }. 

Such is the theory: and there is probably this 
amount of truth in it, viz. that the controversies with 
these sects did bring out into clearer consciousness 
the idea of a New Testament Canon, and did lead’ 
to greater stress being laid upon it. It is indeed the 
chief weapon with which Irenaeus and Tertullian fight 
their battle. But to suppose that there was any great 
and sudden change between Justin and Irenaeus is to 
draw an inference from the writings of Justin which 
they certainly will not bear. We have from Justin two 
treatises, both of the nature of apologies, one ad- 
dressed to the pagan emperors, the other directed to 
the points at issue with the Jews. In neither of these 
was it at all likely that he would appeal to Christian 
books as authoritative in the sense which we call 
canonical, If his Compendium (Syntagma) against 
Heresies, or the treatise against Marcion, had come 
down to us, we might have had a very different state 
of things. But Justin had hardly any contemporaries 
whose writings are now extant; so that for the period 
I40-I75 A.D. we have in reality extremely little 
evidence. But this absence of evidence must not be 
confused with negation of the facts for which evidence 
is sought. It is just here, as so often (I cannot but 
think) in what is called the critical school, that 
Harnack makes his mistake. Because we suddenly 
find traces of a Canon, say from about 175 A.D. 


1 See Additional Note B: Harnack's Theory of the Growth of the 
NV. 7. Canon, 


14 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


onwards, it by no means follows that its origin was 
really sudden. 

On the contrary, when we go back beyond the gap 
and look at the literature, which though still far from 
copious is a little more copious, in the so-called Sub- 
Apostolic Age, ranging from about 95 to 140 A.D., we 
find a state of things which really points forward to 
that in the last quarter of the century. Development 
there is, but continuous development, development 
in a straight line. The break in the evidence involves 
no corresponding break in the facts. 

For proof we may appeal both to the Gospels and 
to the Pauline Epistles. It is true that upon these 
Harnack largely rests his case; but in regard to 
neither are his contentions really tenable. It is extra- 
ordinary how much a very short period of time has 
added to the evidence that our present collection of 
four Gospels, singled out from among the rest, goes 
back, not as had been very commonly maintained to 
the year +170, but a full generation earlier. The 
different items of the evidence may differ somewhat in 
cogency, but they converge in a way to make a case 
of great strength. I shall have occasion to return to 
this point in a later lecture, and therefore will not 
enlarge upon it here. 

The main argument against the validity of the 
fourfold Canon of the Gospels is derived from the 
Alogi, a party whose name, given them of course by 
opponents (Epiphanius, or possibly Hippolytus), is a 
punning play upon their rejection of the Gospel of the 
Logos, along with the other Johannine writings, or at 


The New Testament about 200 4.0. 15 


least the Apocalypse. This party was so small that 
Dr. Salmon believes it to be reducible to the single 
person of the Roman writer Caius?. That perhaps is 
hardly probable: but it was in any case a party which 
consisted of a few educated and critically minded 
persons; it took no root, and gained no popular 
following. 

In the first instance it would seem that the opinion 
had its rise in the reaction at once against Gnostic 
speculation and Montanistic enthusiasm. The Gnostics 
and the Montanists both appealed to the Fourth 
Gospel; and a short method of cutting away the 
ground from under them was to deny the authority 
of the Gospel. But the opposition to the Johannean 
writings was not based on any divergent tradition or 
ecclesiastical usage, but only upon such prema facie 
critical difficulties as might be put forward to-day *. 
These can weigh but little against the general consent 
of the rest of Christendom. 

Thus much however the instance of the Alogi does 
go to prove—not that the Canon of the Gospels 
did not exist, but that it was maintained in a less 
exclusive and dogmatic spirit than it was _ sub- 
sequently. For it does not appear that they were 
excluded from the orthodox communion as Marcion 
and Valentinus were. This is the main difference 
between the year 400 and the year 200. At both 


1 Hermathena, 1892, p. 185. Against this view see Zahn, Gesch. 
d, K. ii. τοῦτ f. 

* Our knowledge of these difficulties is derived from Epiphanius, 
Haer. li. 


ιό JI. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


dates there were but four Gospels acknowledged as 
authoritative ; but whereas at the later date no one 
would have thought of questioning any one of the 
four, or if he had done so would at once have put 
himself outside the pale of Catholic Christianity, at the 
earlier date it was still possible for persons other- 
wise orthodox to raise a doubt as to whether a 
particular book had been received by the Church on 
sufficient grounds 1. 

Along with this difference there went another: 
the use of other Gospels—and indeed we may 
say, speaking of the Canon generally—of other 
writings, than the Canonical. An illustration of this 
is supplied by an incident in the history of the 
document, a portion of which has been so lately and 
so unexpectedly recovered, the Gospel of Peter. 
Serapion, bishop of Antioch from about 190 to 209, 
found this Gospel in use among the Christians of 
Rhossus, and at first was disposed to tolerate it, until 
it was proved to him that it contained heretical 
(Docetic) doctrine. Apart from this he had been 
willing to let it be read as a narrative of the Gospel 
story. At the same time it does not at all follow 
that he regarded apocryphal writings as on the same 
footing with Canonical. He makes this clear at the 
outset of his letter, which Eusebius has preserved ?. 
‘We, brethren,’ he writes, ‘receive Peter and the 
other Apostles as Christ Himself, but the forgeries 

* See Additional Note C: Debaieable Points relating to the 
Alogi. 

2 A. Evi. 12. 


The New Testament about 200 A.D. 17 


current in his name we reject, knowing what they are, 
for none such have been handed down to us.’ 

The use of extra-canonical works was doubtless 
freer in some Churches than in others, and especially 
in Alexandria as compared with the Churches of 
the West. Conspicuous examples are afforded by the 
Homily attributed to Clement of Rome and by the 
writings of his namesake of Alexandria. But the 
Alexandrian Clement was heir to the large-hearted 
traditions of Philo, and it is perhaps hardly right to 
treat him as an average specimen of the Church to 
which he belonged. His are the.only writings which 
are certainly Alexandrian of this date, and there is 
always danger in arguing from isolated cases. 

The Book of the Acts is one of those for which 
direct evidence does not begin until the last quarter 
of the second century, so that we have no proof of 
its acceptance before that date. But as soon as the 
stream of Christian literature begins to run more 
copiously we have full and explicit testimony to it; 
in Gaul from Irenaeus and the Churches of Vienne 
and Lyons, in Italy from the Muratorian Fragment, 
in Africa from Tertullian, and in Egypt from Clement 
of Alexandria’. Everywhere it is treated as a book 


* It is urged that Clement of Alexandria used the Ac/a Johannis of 
Leucius, the ‘ Paradoses’ of Matthias, and the Predicatio Petri in- 
differently with the canonical Acts (Harnack, JV. 7: um 200, p. 51). 
So might Serapion too have used the Gospel of Peter, if he had not 
found in it heretical doctrine; but it would not follow that he placed 
it on alevel with the canonical Gospels. And in like manner Clement 
himself refers to the Gospel according to the Egyptians, but expressly 
distinguishing it from the Four Gospels. If any conflict of testimony 


ς 


i J. Lhe New Testament.in the Early Church. 


the position of which is established. There is nothing 
to hint that it was but newly wont. It was indeed 
difficult to dissociate it, on the one hand from the 
Gospel of St. Luke and on the other hand from the 
Epistles of St. Paul. The most natural supposition 
would be that it circulated in the first instance along 
with the Gospel. Both were not only by the same 
author but addressed to the same individual, so that 
they were in the first instance probably made public 
together. But the Gospel and the Acts are so like 
in their historical character that the authority which 
attached to the one would pass over to the other 2. 
Still less possible is it to think of the Pauline 
Epistles as but just recognised as the last quarter 


had arisen, he might have made his estimate of the apocryphal Acts 
plainer. But on the whole question of Clement’s treatment of the 
Canonical Scriptures see Additional Noite. 

* Harnack indeed declares that ‘there can be no doubt that the 
flourish of trumpets with which the Western Fathers accompany the 
book is to be regarded as the overture (Einfiihrungsmusik) which 
introduces it into the Church collection ’ (V. 7: um 200, p. 53). I have 
read through the passages to which appeal is specially made (‘Tert. De 
Praescript. 22, 23; Adv. Marc. i. 20; iv. 2-5; v. 1-3; Iren. Adv. 
fTaer. lib. iii), and have entirely failed to detect anything of the kind. 
On the contrary, the way in which the reference is made seems to me 
to be in all cases perfectly easy and natural, not made with any view 
to glorify the Acts, but in prosecution of the main argument on 
the lines laid down by both writers, that of an appeal to acknow- 
ledged ‘Scriptures. In referring to those who do not receive the 
Book of the Acts (Praescr. 22) Tertullian probably alludes to 
Marcion, but for himself it is as much an established authority as the 
Gospels. 

* I strongly suspect that the Gospels and Acts were translated into 
Latin at the same time and by the same hand; but as the proof of 
this is not quite complete, I do not press the point. 


The New Testament about 200 A.v. 19 


of the second century began. About the year 140 
Marcion the Gnostic put forward his collection of 
ten of St. Paul’s Epistles. He omitted the three 
Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus), which were 
questioned, as we shall see, by others besides himself, 
not on the ground that they were not St. Paul's, 
but in all probability because they were addressed to 
private individuals, and therefore did not seem so suited 
for a ‘Bible’ as the letters addressed to Churches’. 
But it is not merely an assumption of his opponents 
that the Catholic collection was older than Marcion’s. 
This appears partly from the titles to the Epistles 
where the general agreement is thrown into relief by 
the variant ‘To the Laodiceans’ for ‘To the Ephe- 
sians*’; partly also from the fact that the type of 
text which he had before him was certainly not 
that of the original but a secondary text elsewhere 
current; and lastly from the equal certainty that 
passages which he is known to have omitted were 
no later interpolations but part of the genuine letters 
as they left the hand of St. Paul*. The inference 
thus drawn from Marcion’s ‘Amoorod:kév, as he called 
it, is confirmed by the use of the Epistles which 


1 This is clearly the ground of the apologetic language of the 
Muratorian Fragment, and a like objection is implied by Tertullian, 
Adv. Marc. v. 21; compare Jerome, Pracf. ad Ep. Philon. (Zahn, 
ii. 999), Theod. Mops. zz Lpp. Paul. ii. 259 (ed. Swete). 

* Zahn thinks that Marcion found πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους in his copy and 
altered it on critical grounds to πρὸς Λαοδικέας, Dr. Hort that he had 
πρὸς Λαοδικέας before him, but in any case Marcion’s collection was 
already provided with titles. 

* For details see Zahn, Gesch. d. K. i. 633 ff. 

Ὁ 


20 2. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


is made by Ignatius, and still more in the letter of 
Polycarp to the Philippians 1. 

It is maintained that the Pauline Epistles, though 
generally accepted towards the end of the century, 
. were on a lower level of authority than the Gospels 
and the Old Testament. Of the latter we shall have 
occasion to speak presently. But in both instances 
the inference is again wrongly drawn from the facts. 
Theré may be an element of truth in’ Harnacks 
assertion that the term ‘Scripture’ is applied less 
freely to the Epistles than to the Gospels, and less 
to both than the Old Testament, though a larger 
induction would be necessary to make it good? 
But in any case this would be only a natural sur- 
vival of old-established usage, and would prove 
nothing as to a deliberate difference of estimate. 
We shall see presently what evidence there is for 
regarding the Old Testament and the New as on 
the same footing. Two arguments in particular are 
brought forward to prove the inferior position of the 
Pauline Epistles. One of these, taken from the 
Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (180 a.p.), turns largely 
upon a mistranslation®, And the use which is 


1 See Lecture VII, p. 362 2717. 

2 N. T. um 200, p. 36 ff. The first idea may be dismissed. 
Harnack, as usual, quotes the De Aleatoribus as Victor's, but it is 
almost certainly later ; see Miodonski’s edition (Erlangen und Leipzig, 
1889), Wolfflin in Archiv fir lat. Lexthographie, v. 487 ff.; Haussleiter 
in Theol. Literaturblatt, 1889, cols. 41 ff., 49 ff., 225 ff.; Class. Rev. iii. 
(1889) 127, &c. 

8. Harnack’s reasoning is based on the Greek Text of the Acts 
published by Usener in 1881. Since that date a Latin Text has 


The New Testament about 200 A.D. 21 


made of Clement of Alexandria is also untenable’. 
It is quite possible to refine too much and in the 
wrong place. And where the evidence is too scanty 
to admit of any deductions at all it is better simply 
to say so than to strain the little that there is. 


been discovered (see the Cambridge Zexts and Studies, i. τοῦ ff.) 
which many hold to be the original of which the Greek is a translation. ἡ 
Waiving that point, for I am not sure that both are not contempo- 
raneous and of equal authority, I still cannot admit Harnack’s infer- 
ence. The martyrs are asked what they have in their case (Quae 
sunt res tn capsa vestraP ὋὉποῖαι πραγματεῖαι τοῖς ὑμετέροις ἀπόκεινται 
σκεύεσιν ;). They answer, ‘[Our] books and the Epistles of Paul, a 
[the] righteous [holy] man’ (Lidr7’ et epistulae Pauli viri justi ; Αἱ καθ᾽ 
ἡμᾶς βίβλοι καὶ προσεπιτούτοις ἐπιστολαὶ Παύλου τοῦ ὁσίου ἀνδρός). Har- 
nack (V. 7. um 200, p. 38) lays stress on τούτοις (πρὸς ἐπὶ τούτοις) as 
in agreement with σκεύεσιν ; but it should clearly be combined with 
the prepositions as an adverbial phrase—‘ besides,’ ‘in addition.’ The 
separation of the βίβλοι and the ἐπιστολαί does perhaps mark an early 
stage in the history of the New Testament as a collection; but there 
is more significance in the fact that both are contained in the same 
case (capfsa sing., interpreting the ambiguous ckevy). The epithets 
given to St. Paul show the estimation in which his writings would 
be held. 

1 See Additional Note D: The use of the New Testament by Clement 
of Alexandria. 

* This is not I think an unfair comment on Harnack’s treatment of 
the evidence relating to the Church of Antioch and Syria (Dogmen- 
gesch. i. 284 f. ed. 1, 319 f. ed. 2). He adds apologetically, ‘Es 
kénnte nun allerdings gewagt erscheinen, auf Grund des diirftigen 
Materiales, welches Theophilus liefert ... den Schluss zu ziehen,’ &c. 
Certainly such a procedure is ‘gewagt,’ and the reasons alleged do 
not justify it. But where the master states his case with some qualifi- 
cation, the disciple follows and states it baldly as if it were all 
admitted truth. Here are some sentences from Dr. Karl Miiller’s 
Kirchengeschichie (Freiburg i. B. 1892), an able work, which however 
in the earlier chapters treads too closely in the steps of Harnack. In 
regard to the Gospels: ‘ Vielmehr haben andere Asiaten . . . kiinftig 


22 I. The New Testament in the Early Church, 


But indeed the whole case for the sudden emer- 
gence (‘plétzliches Auftauchen’) of the Canon only 
needs to be stated to refute itself. Let us take 
Harnack’s own words: ‘And yet the collection of 
writings for Irenaeus and Tertullian is closed; it is 
already thrown in the teeth of the heretics that this 
or the other book is not recognised by them; their 
Bibles are measured by the standard of the Church 
collection as the elder, and this is already employed 
just like the Old Testament. The assumption of the 
inspiration of the books, their harmonistic interpre- 
tation, the conception of their absolute sufficiency 
on every question which can arise and in regard to 
every event which they relate, the right of com- 
bining passages ad fdilum, the assumption that 


nur noch die vier, heute kanonischen, Evangelien zulassen wollen, 
alle anderen Darstellungen des Evangeliums ausgeschlossen. Im 
iibrigen A/orgenland ist dies noch nicht geschehen, wohl aber in Rom 
und im Abendland iiberhaupt’ (p. 84). If stress is laid upon the 
negative side of this proposition, it may be just covered by the case of 
Serapion; otherwise Clement of Alexandria is the only evidence for 
the whole of the East—a writer as to whom it is doubtful whether 
his witness extends beyond himself! Then as to the Epistles: ‘Sie 
galten nicht als ypapy’ [How does Dr. Miiller know this? They were 
γραφή for Marcion], ‘wurden vielleicht auch nicht regelmiassig im 
Gottesdienst verlesen’ [Possibly, but again where is the evidence Ὁ] 
‘und sind da wo sie benutzt werden, entweder unter dem Namen 
ihrer Verfasser oder tiberhaupt nicht citirt’ [What of Ignatius, Poly- 
carp, and 2 Clement?]. Again: ‘eine dritte Klasse von heiligen 
Schriften entsteht “Die Apostel.” Sie verrat die Neuheit ihres 
Ursprunges dadurch, dass man sie auch in grossen Gemeinden der 
“Schrift” und dem Herrn zunichst noch nicht gleichwertig achtet (so 
noch Bischof Viktor (?) von Rom in De Alea/oribus um 190(?); 
Martyrer von Scili in Numidien, 180). Surely we may double the 
two notes of interrogation, and add a third to the martyrs of Scili! 


The New Testament about 200 4.0. 23 


nothing in the Scriptures is indifferent, and finally 
allegorical exegesis, are the immediate result of 
canonization, the proof of which is present from the 
first’. It is an advantage to have to deal with a 
writer who has so complete and thorough a know- 
ledge of his subject. But he asks us to believe 
that all this is a swdden product, accomplished within 
the manhood of Irenaeus himself, and without his 
betraying the slightest consciousness of it! Such 
changes—and to this writer they are all changes— 
are not really wrought in a day. 

We have spoken so far only of the solid nucleus of 
accepted writings. Outside these there were the two 
other groups, on the one hand of writings which were 
working their way to eventual recognition, and on the 
other of those which, beginning with a certain measure 
of acceptance, finally lost it and were excluded from 
the Canon. It is remarkable that some of the books 
omitted in the Muratorian list were among those 
which enjoyed the earliest attestation as writings. The 
Epistle to the Hebrews is quoted in what is probably 
the earliest extra-canonical work still within the limits 
of the first century (1 Clement). The Apocalypse is 
not only referred to very early, having been apparently 
commented on by Papias?, but is one of the first 
books to be quoted with the name of its author’. 
And the Epistle of St. James appears to have left 


* Dogmengesch. i. 276, ed. τ. 

* The express statements of Andreas and Arethas of Caesarea 
more than outweigh the silence of Eusebius. 

* Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. 81. 


24 J. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


traces of itself in Clement of Rome, the D2daché, 
and Hermas!. This proves that the books in ques- 
tion at least go back to the Apostolic age, if that 
age is measured by the lifetime of St. John. But 
after enjoying—two of them at least—a considerable 
amount of popularity at this early date, they seem to 
suffer a sort of eclipse : Hebrews apparently from the 
doubt as to its authorship; the Apocalypse from the 
opposition among the more cultured Christians to the 
Millenarian views which it was thought to foster; the 
Epistle of St. James more probably from the peculiar 
circumstances of its original destination and early 
transmission. All three books, except in so far as 
Hebrews was attributed to St. Paul or included among 
his writings, had the disadvantage of circulating singly 
and not under the safeguard of a collection. Hebrews 
was saved by the value set upon it by the scholars of 
Alexandria?; the Apocalypse by the loyalty of the 


1 See the instances newly collected by Dr. J. B. Mayor, Zhe Lprs/le 
of St. James, p. |. ff. Dr. Mayor's lists are put together with great 
care, but they seem to me to err on the side of excess. I could not 
feel sure that all even of the passages marked with asterisks were 
really allusions to the Epistle. 

* Overbeck (Zur Gesch. d. Kanons, Chemnitz, 1880, pp. 12-17) 
has the perverse ingenuity to maintain that Hebrews originally began 
with a paragraph of salutation containing the name of the writer, but 
that this was deliberately amputated and the concluding verses (xiii. 
22-25) added, to make it pass for St. Paul’s. If it were so, we might 
ask, why did not the redactor boldly substitute St. Paul’s name for that 
which he found? And why did he proceed in the one case by 
subtraction, in the other by addition? Further, the amputation, if it 
took place, must have taken place very early; for Tertullian knows 
the Epistle as the work of Barnabas (and the name of Barnabas 
would have served the purpose as well as that of St. Paul), and 


The New Testament about 200 ..}. 25 


West; and the Epistle of St. James by the attach- 
ment of certain Churches in the East, especially as we 
may believe that of Jerusalem. 

As to the two smaller Epistles of St. John, it is 
somewhat curious that for a time we find traces of the 
Second only, without the Third’. This may how- 
ever be only accident. When the Third Epistle 
joined the Second both were naturally accepted to- 
gether. Some hesitation there probably was on 
account of their diminutive size, the seeming unim- 
portance of their contents, and the ambiguous charac- 
ter of their address, which might be only to a private 
person. The like objection appears to have been 
taken to the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. Traces of 


Clement of Alexandria has a story derived from his teacher, Pan- 
taenus, already treating the Epistle as St. Paul’s (Eus. 27. £. vi. 14). 
This would throw back the mutilation to a date when I should not 
imagine that Overbeck would allow that there was any thought of a 
Canon at all. 

It is significant that Harnack (Dogmengesch. i. 279 n. ed. 1, 312 
ed. 2) refers to Overbeck’s essay as if it had settled the matter once 
for all. This is the way in which myths get currency, like the other 
myth about ‘ Victor, De Aleatorzbus.’ It is impossible not to be struck 
by Harnack’s great powers, but he sorely needs to learn to weigh 
degrees of probability and not to build upon pure conjecture as if it 
were certain. 

As to the opening of the Epistle, we may remember that these early 
Christian Epistles hover between the idea of a letter and a homily; 
so much so that a writing (2 Clement) which is clearly a homily 
almost from the first took rank as an Epistle. The writer of Hebrews 
frankly gave his work the homiletic form. 

1 So in Irenaeus, the Muratorian Fragment (apparently), in the 
debates of the Council of Carthage (Sentent. Zpzsc.) of the year 256, 
and also, so far as we can be quite certain, in Clement of Alexandria: 
see S/ud. Bibl. iii. 250 f.; Harnack, V. 7. um 200, p. 55 ff., &c. 


26 7. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


controversy on this point are perceptible in the 
Muratorian Fragment. The doubts however in both 
cases were overruled. 

The Epistle of St. Jude has good attestation in 
proportion to its importance, in the Muratorian list, 
Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. 2 St. Peter 
has, as is well known, the scantiest support of any 
book in the New Testament Canon. The evidence 
for it begins with Origen', who however expressly 
mentions that it was doubted. But fresh light has 
been thrown upon this Epistle by the newly dis- 
covered Apocalypse of Peter, the significance of which 
we shall attempt to estimate later. 

There are many indications that at the end of the 
second century the claims of these various writings 
were being weighed and considered. The Muratorian 
list is one of such indications ; Tertullian’s comparison 
of Hebrews and the Shepherd of Hermas is another ?; 
still more his striking statement about the synods at 
which the latter work was formally rejected *. Then 
again Clement of Alexandria, followed by Origen, on 


1 Coincidences with the Epistle have been pointed out in writings 
earlier than Origen. Probably the strongest is the group of passages 
Barn. xv. 4, Justin, Dza/. 81, Iren. Adv. Haer. v. 23. 2, 28. 3, which 
contain the idea of 2 Pet. iii, 8 μία ἡμέρα παρὰ Κυρίῳ ὡς χίλια ἔτη. 
Clearly this was a common idea among the early Christians, but the 
passage in 2 St. Peter may be one expression of it and not the source. 
See below, p. 381. 

* De Pudic. 20. 

* De Pudic. 10: Sed cederem tibi st scriptura Pastoris, quae sola 
moechos amat, divino tnstrumento meruisset tneidt, st non ab omni concilio 
ecclestarum eliam vestrarum tinier apocrypha et falsa judicaretur, adultera 
ef inde falrona sociorun. 


The New Testament about 200 4.0. 2 


the Epistle to the Hebrews; the many discussions on 
the Apocalypse ; and Hippolytus’ defence both of it 
and of the Gospel of St. John. The end of the second 
century is the true turning-point in the history of the 
Canon. We are rightly reminded? that the forming 
of the Canon was not only a process of collection and 
accretion, but even more a process of reduction and 
contraction. What a number of works circulated 
among the Churches of the second century all en- 
joying a greater or less degree of authority, only to 
lose it! In the way of Gospels, those according to 
the Hebrews, according to the Egyptians, according 
to Peter: in the way of Acts, the so-called ‘ Travels’ 
(περίοδοι) of Apostles, ascribed by Photius to Leucius 
Ghariws7; the Preaching’ ot Peter,” the’ Acts: ‘of 
Paul, the original form of the Acts of Paul and 
ΗΠ heclay im the way of “Epistles, 1 and 2 Clement, 
Barnabas: an allegory like the Shepherd of Hermas ; 
a manual like the Dzdaché; an Apocalypse like that of 
Peter. Truly it may be said that here too the last 
was first and the first last. Several of these works 
had a circulation and popularity considerably in excess 
of that of some of the books now included in the 
Canon. It is certainly a wonderful feat on the part of 
the early Church to have by degrees sifted out this 
mass of literature; and still more wonderful that it 
should not have discarded, at least so far as the New 
Testament is concerned, one single work which after- 
generations have found cause to look back upon with 


1 By Harnack, WV. 7: um 200, p. 111: 
2 Biblioth. 114 (p. go, ed. Bekker). 


28 J. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


any regret. Most valuable, no doubt, many of them 
may be for enabling us to reconstruct the history of 
the times, but there is not one which at this moment 
we should say possessed a real claim to be invested 
with the authority of the Canon. 


II. We are now brought face to face with our 
second question, What was it that the Church de- 
termined by declaring certain books to be Canonical ? 
It decided that they were possessed of certain special 
properties or attributes, and we now have to inquire 
what those attributes were 1. 

It was agreed upon all hands that the Scriptures 
were in some sense ‘divine.’ From the first moment 
that we possess Christian literature of any volume 
expressions which imply this abound. The term 
‘holy Scriptures’ (αἱ ἅγιαι γραφαί) followed by a 
quotation from St. John begins with Theophilus of 
Antioch (¢. 181 a.p.)?; ‘sacred writings’ (ἱερὰ γράμματα) 
of the New Testament with Clement of Alexandria ὃ, 
who also uses ai βίβλοι αἱ ἅγιαι. ‘sacred books’ 
(ἱεραὶ βίβλοι) with Origen®. The ‘divine word’ (ὁ 
θεῖος λόγος), introducing a quotation from St. Paul, 


‘In what follows use has been made of the collection of Zes/- 
monia in Routh, Rell. Sacr. v. 235-253, and occasionably of references 
in Zahn and Harnack; compare also the very ample materials in 
Bp. Westcott’s Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix B. 

2 Ad Auiol. ii. 22. 

8. Strom. i. 20. ὃ 98; ii. 11.§ 48. Note also the expanded phrase, 
ἱερὰ γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς τὰ ἱεροποιοῦντα καὶ θεοποιοῦντα γράμματα (Protrept, 
9. 87). 

* Paced. iii. 12. § 97. 5 De Princ. iv. 9. 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 29 


is found in Theophilus of Antioch?; ‘the divine 
Scriptures’ (γραφαὶ θεῖαι, αἱ θεῖαι γραφαί), apparently 
about this date the commonest of all expressions, 
begins (for the New Testament) with Clement of 
Alexandria; γραφὴ θεϊκή occurs in an anonymous 
writer quoted by Eusebius, af γραφαὶ τοῦ θεοῦ in 
a fragment of Caius?; θείς παράδοσις belongs to 
Clement of Alexandria ὃ; θεῷ πειθαρχεῖν, as an equiva- 
lent for ‘obeying the Scriptures,’ to Hippolytus‘; 
Det voces, Scriptura divina, divinune instrumentune, 
divina literatura, sacrosanctus sitlus are phrases of 
Tertullian’s ; divint fontes, divina magisteria, prae- 
cepla divina, divina ct sancta traditio are characteristic 
of Cyprian: another word which is rather frequent 
in the Latinity of Cyprian’s time is deificus (scripturae 
deificae, &c.), probably only in the sense of ‘ divine’ ὅ; 
sancta et adorabilia scripturarum verba® is a phrase 
which shows the reverence with which the Scriptures 
were regarded. Cyprian defines the Scriptures as 
ella guae Deus loguitur*; and Tertullian sums up the 
authority to which the Christian appeals, Dez est 
scriptura, Det est natura, Dei est disciplina ,; quicguid 
contrartum est rstis, Det non est 5. 


1 Ad Autol. iii. 14. 

cal: Ra) Fee 28. eh 28: 2. 

% Strom, vii. 16. § 103. 

* Conira Noet. 6. 

5 Miodonski on De Aleat. p. 107; Rénsch, Semas. Beitrége, ii. 8 ; 
otherwise Westcott, Canon, p. 413. 

® Lucius, bishop of Thebeste, at the Council of Carthage in 256 
(Sentent. Episc. § 31). 

7 Ad Fortun. 4. Sy ΣΟ Τύχη Vel. 16; 


30 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


The Scriptures of the New Testament are placed 
by the end of the second century entirely on the same 
footing with those of the Old. This is admitted on 
all hands for the West—for Irenaeus and Tertullian 
and the Muratorian Fragment (which equates ‘ pro- 
phets and apostles,’ besides in its whole tenor im- 
plying for the New Testament the full prerogatives 
of Scripture), for Hippolytus, Cyprian and Novatian. 
It is allowed! that when Melito made a special journey 
in the East to ascertain the exact number and order of 
the ‘ books of the Old Testament’ (τὰ τῆς παλαιᾶς δια- 
θήκης βιβλία) he presupposes a like collection of books 
of the New Testament. Origen seeks to establish 
his teaching by testimonies from what Christians ‘ be- 
lieve to be the divine Scriptures, as well of that 
which is called the Old Testament as of that which 
is called the New*’ And even more expressly he 
says that it was the same Spirit proceeding from the 
one God who determined the elder revelation and that 
of the Gospels and Apostles*. A doubt however is 
raised about Clement of Alexandria. He repeatedly 
combines or contrasts the New Testament or Cove- 
nant with the Old; but there is of course a certain 
ambiguity in these phrases. It may be the two dis- 
pensations which are coordinated with each other, or 
it may be the writings belonging to the dispensations, 


1 FE. g. by Harnack (Dogmengesch. i. 275, n. 2, ed. 1; p. 308, n. 2, 
ed. 2). 

® De Princip. iv. 1 (=Philocal. 1 ; Lommatzsch, xxi. 485 f.; xxv. 1). 

ὃ Ibid. 16 (Lommatzsch, xxi. 509: these references give Origen’s 
own words, and not merely the Latin of Rufinus), 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 31 


not the two Covenants but the two Testaments. 
This ambiguity applies to some of the passages in 
Clement, but by no means to all: there are some in 
which the idea of the dispensation seems to pass into 
that of the written documents, and others in which 
the reference to these documents is clear. And apart 
from that, there is abundant evidence to show that 
Clement really assigned to the New Testament an 
authority equal to that of the Old 1. 

That which gives to the Scriptures this authori- 
tative and sacred character is more particularly the 
fact that they are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This 
too we find declared in set terms and evidently 
implied all through the Christian literature from the 
beginning of the last quarter of the second cen- 
tury onwards. The epithet πνευματοφόροι applied to 
New Testament writers occurs twice in Theophilus 
of Antioch ? (181 A.p.): in the first place he expressly 
includes among the πνευματοφόροι the Apostle St. John, 
proceeding to quote the first verses of his Gospel, 
and in the second he affirms that the writings of 
Prophets and Evangelists agree ‘ because all the mvev- 
ματοφόροι have spoken by one Spirit of God.’ Irenaeus 
speaks of the Apostles after they had been clothed 
with the power of the Holy Spirit descending upon 

* See Additional Note D, p. 65 f. 

? Ad Autol. ii. 22; iii. 12. There is also a very strong passage in 
which, with reference primarily to the prophets of the Old Testament, 
he explains what is contained*in this term mvevpatopdpa: of δὲ τοῦ 
Brae baie το omvevpurodépov τινεύματου dylau: Kab mporpiran) yevdpevdi, ὑπ᾽ 
Era π᾿ etmievdévres καὶ oodiabéres: eyévovro Gcodidakrot Kav Cort 


καὶ δίκαιοι (ii. 0). 


32 J. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


them from on high as being fully assured about all 
things and possessing perfect knowledge'; he also 
describes the Gospels as, in spite of their fourfold 
form, being ‘held together by one Spirit?’ In like 
manner the Muratorian Fragment speaks of the lead- 
ing facts of the Lord's life as declared in them ‘by 
one sovereign Spirit’ (wuo ac principali*® Spiritu de- 
clarata). Tertullian describes the Sacred Writers as 
having their minds ‘ flooded’ (zzzndatos) with the Holy 
Spirit*. Clement of Alexandria refers a saying of 
St)! Paul's (1 Cor. it. δ) the Holy» Spit aati 
Apostle ‘using mystically the voice of the Lord®’; 
and he describes St. John as led to the composition 
of his Gospel ‘under the affatus of the Spirit’ (Πνεύ- 
ματι θεοφορηθέντα) δ. Origen defines the process of 
inspiration still more elaborately: he says that ‘the 
Sacred Books are not the works of men,’ but that they 
‘were written by inspiration (ἐξ ἐπιπνοίας) of the Holy 
Spirit, at the will of the Father of All, through Jesus 


1 Adv. Haer. iii. τ. 1: de omnibus adimplet’ sunt (clearly = ἐπληρο- 
opndnaav) εἰ habuerunt perfectam agnitionem. 

2 Lbid. iii, 11. 8: ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν τετράμορφον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἑνὶ δὲ πνεύματι 
συνεχόμενον. 

3. The reference seems to be to ἡγεμονικῷ πνεύματι, Ps. 1. 14 LXX (li. 
12 Heb.); in regard to which Origen (or Rufinus) says that there are 
many spirits, sed za his princtpatum ct dominationem hunc Spiritum 
Sanclum, qui et principalis appellatur, tenere (Comm. in Rom. vii. 1 ; 
Lommatzsch, vii. 86; cf. also Tertullian, Adv. Hermog. 4; De Anim. 
15, quoted by Hesse). 

4 Apol. 18. 

5 Paed. i. 6. ὃ 49: διὰ τοῦτο ἄρα μυστικῶς τὸ ἐν τῷ ἀποστόλῳ ἅγιον 
Πνεῦμα τῇ τοῦ Κυρίου ἀποχρώμενον φωνῇ “γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα᾽ λέγει. 


5. Ad, Lee Vie TAO, 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 533 


Christ’? Somewhat similar is the language of 
Hippolytus, who speaks of the Sacred Writers as 
‘receiving the inspiration, or af/latus, of the Father's 
power’ (τῆς πατρῴας δυνάμεως τὴν ἀπόπνοιαν λαβόντες) 2. 
The word θεόπνευστος applied to the New Testament 
appears first in Clement, then in Origen* and 
Eusebius *, and even in the address of the Emperor 
Constantine to the bishops assembled at Nicaea 5, 
Another way of describing the source of inspira- 
tion is, not to refer it directly to the Holy Spirit, but 
to regard the writer as invested with the authority 
of Christ Himself. Thus in a passage which has 
become very familiar of late, Serapion, bishop of 
Antioch at the end of the second century, identifies 
the authority of an Apostle with that of Christ: ‘We, 
brethren, receive Peter and the other Apostles as 
Christ Himself?’ Clement of Alexandria speaks of 
obeying the Scriptures as ‘obeying the Lord*’ He 
repeatedly gives to both Testaments the title κυριακαὶ 
γραφαί9ϑ, and refers alike the teaching of Prophets, of 
Evangelists, and Apostles to Christ?°. Irenaeus in 
like manner describes those who prophesied of the 
Coming of Christ as receiving their inspiration from 


1 De Princip. iv. 9; Lommatzsch, xxi. 498. 2 Cont. Noet. 11. 

P22 Si70M. Vi. LO. δὰ ΤΟΙ; 155; 67: p. 28, n. 3, sup. 

* E.g. De Princip. iv. 8; Lommatzsch, xxi. 496. 

Pid, Bee lil. ἢ ὩΣ CG: 

© Theodoret, 7. /. i. 6 (ed. Schulze, 5 ed. Vales.). 

ip. bus. 77. ΚΕ. Vi. 02. 3. 8. Strom. vii. τό. ὃ τοι. 

® Eg. Strom. vii. 1.§ 13 16. § 94. 

© Strom. vii. 16. ὃ 95: ἔχομεν yap τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς διδασκαλίας τὸν κύριον 
διά τε τῶν προφητῶν διά τε τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καὶ διὰ τῶν μακαρίων ἀποστόλων. 


D 


34 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


the Son Himself!. Origen assumes that the true 
sense or mind of the Gospels is really the mind 
of Christ*. And a later writer quoted by Jerome 
takes up St. Paul’s phrase ‘Christ speaking in me’ 
(2 Cor. xiii. 3) as a mode of expressing the process 
of inspiration®, The Epistles of St. Paul prepare 
us for the equivalence of the two phrases, ‘ Christ 
speaking in me’ and ‘the Spirit of Christ speaking in 
me. Those who used them no doubt meant exactly 
the same thing. 

Testimonies to the general doctrine of inspiration 
may be multiplied to almost any extent; but there 
are some which go further and point to an inspiration 
which might be described as ‘ verbal.’ Nor does this 
idea come in tentatively and by degrees, but almost 
from the very first. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian 
regard Inspiration as determining the choice of par- 
ticular words and phrases. For instance, Irenaeus 
in view of the Gnostic separation between the man 
Jesus and the aeon Christus, the descent of which 
they postponed until the Baptism, says that the Holy 
Spirit, foreseeing these corruptions of the truth and 
guarding against their fraudulent dealing, said by the 
mouth of Matthew, ‘ Now the birth of Christ was on 
this wise*.’ This is the more noticeable, because the 


» Adv. Haer. iv. 7. 2: Qui... adventum Christi prophetaverunt, 
revelationem acceperunt ab ipso Filo. Compare iv. 15. 1. 

® De Princ. iv. 10; Lomm. xxi. 499. 

* Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. prol. 

* Adv. Haer, iii. 16. 2: praevidens Spirttus Sanctus depravatores et 
praemuniens contra fraudulentiam eorum per Matthaeum ait, Christi 
autem generatio sic eral. 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 35 


reading which Irenaeus assumes, though very possibly 
and perhaps probably the right one, is not now found 
in a single Greek MS, And in like manner Ter- 
tullian speaks of the Holy Spirit as foreseeing that 
some would claim unlimited licence for bishops, and 
therefore laying down that they were to be the hus- 
bands of only one wife1; and in more places than 
one he speaks of the ‘foresight’ (frovidentia) of the 
Holy Spirit cutting away the ground from heretics ?. 
Tertullian, like Irenaeus, quite adopts the formula of 
St. Matthew and other New Testament writers as 
to the Spirit of God speaking ‘through’ the human 
author. Origen, adopting another phrase from St. 
Matthew's Gospel, expresses his belief that ‘there 
is not one jot or one tittle but is charged with divine 
lessons *.’ Inspiration may attach even to a number. 
Thus the author of Computus de Pascha, a contem- 
porary of Cyprian’s, refers St. Paul’s estimate of the 
length of the period of the Judges expressly to the 
teaching of the Holy Spirit*. And as inspiration is 
here invoked on a question of numbers, so elsewhere 
in regard to the facts of history; Moses was indebted 
to the teaching of the Holy Spirit for the older 
history from the Creation to the times of Abraham, 
and in like manner it was He who informed the 
Evangelists of the wondrous sign which happened at 


1 De Monog. 12. * De Jejun. 15; Adv. Marc, v. 7. 
° Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12; Lomm. iv. 39: ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἰῶτα ἕν ἢ 
μίαν κεραίαν ov πιστεύω κενὴν εἶναι θείων μαθημάτων, 
* De Pasch. Comp. 11: Secundum Pauli b. apostoli sermonem, qué 
Spirttu Domint edoctus retulit cos tmplesse annos cccel. 
D 2 


36 2. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


the Baptism’. The four Canonical Evangelists were 
not like others who attempted to write Gospel narra- 
tives, they really wrote them at the prompting of the 
Holy Spirit. Dionysius of Alexandria says that ‘ the 
Holy Spirit, imparted severally to the Evangelists, 
describes the whole mind of our Saviour by the 
words of each*.’ And Archelaus, bishop of Caschara 
in Mesopotamia, makes the Holy Spirit vouch for the 
a¢curacy of a saying ascribed to our Lord in the 
Gospel of St. Matthew +. 

We cannot wonder if this high doctrine sometimes 
takes the form of asserting the absolute perfection 
and infallibility of the Scriptures. We saw that 
Irenaeus attributes to the Apostles ‘ perfect know- 
ledge δι᾽ Elsewhere he is still more explicit, asserting 
that the Scriptures must needs be ‘perfect, as 
having been spoken by the Word of God and His 


1 Contra Cels.i. 443 Lomm. xviii. 83 f.: "ANNos δ᾽ ἄν τις εἴποι, ὅτι 
ov πάντες τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ ἤκουσαν ταῦτα διηγουμένου οἱ ἀναγράψαντες τὰ περὶ τοῦ 
εἴδους τῆς περιστερᾶς καὶ τῆς ἐξ οὐράνου φωνῆς" ἀλλὰ τὸ διδάξαν Μωῦσέα 
Πνεῦμα τὴν πρεσβυτέραν αὐτοῦ ἱστορίαν, ἀρξαμένην ἀπὸ τῆς κοσμογονίας μέχρι 
τῆς κατὰ τὸν ᾿Αβραὰμ τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ, τοῦτ᾽ ἐδίδαξε καὶ τοὺς γράψαντας τὸ 
εὐαγγέλιον, τὸ γενόμενον παράδοξον κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦ βαπτίσματος Ἰησοῦ. 
A similar idea occurs in Josephus, ς. Apion. i. 8: μόνον τῶν προφητῶν 
τὰ μὲν ἀνωτάτω καὶ παλαιότατα κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ μαθόντων. 

2 Homil. τ. in Luc. (Lomm. v. 85 f.) 

8 Migne, Patrol. Graec. x. 1389: Td οὖν Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον εἰς τοὺς 
εὐαγγελιστὰς κατανεμηθέν, τὴν πᾶσαν τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν διάθεσιν ἐκ τῆς ἑκάστου 
φωνῆς συντίθησιν. 

* Sed et Spirttu (Spiritus cod.) Evangelista Matthaeus diligenter 
stgnificat Domini nostrt Jesu Christi sermonem: Videle ne quis vos 
seducat, &c. Acta Disp. S. Archelat cum Manele (Migne, ut sup., col. 
1485; Routh, Rell. Sacr. v. 131). 

5 Supp. 32) 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 531 


Spirit?, An anonymous writer against the Mon- 
tanists guards himself against being supposed to be 
ambitious of supplementing the Gospels to which no 
good Christian could add anything and from which 
he could not take away*. Heracleon, the Gnostic, 
is convicted of this audacity, inserting qualifying words 
in the prologue to the Gospel of St. John, which 
entirely pervert its meaning* Clement of Alex- 
andria asserts that ‘not one tittle’ of the Scriptures (in 
which he has included just before the Epistle to the 
Romans) can pass away, because they are spoken by 
the Holy Ghost* Methodius, bishop of Olympus, 
lays down that there can be ‘no contradiction or 
absurdity in holy writ®’ Origen starts from the 
premises that the Gospels having been composed 
with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit the writers 
cannot have had any lapse of memory®*; and else- 
where that the Evangelists ‘cannot have made a 
mistake or set down anything falsely’, so that two 

1 Adv. Παρ. ii. 28. 2: rectissime scientes, quia Scriplurae quidem 
perfectae sunt, quippe a Verbo Det et Spiritu ejus dictae. 

* Ap. Eus. H. Σ΄. v. τό. 3: δεδιὼς δὲ καὶ ἐξευλαβούμενος, μή πη δόξω 
τισὶν ἐπισυγγράφειν ἢ ἐπιδιατάσσεσθαι τῷ τῆς τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καινῆς διαθήκης 
λόγῳ, ᾧ μήτε προσθεῖναι μήτ᾽ ἀφελεῖν δυνατὸν τῷ κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον αὐτὸ 
πολιτεύεσθαι προῃρημένῳ. 

3. Orig. 2: Lv. Joan. ii. 8 (Lommatzsch, i. 117). 

* Protrept. 9. ἃ 82. 

5 μηδεμία ὑπεναντίωσις ἢ ἀτοπία ἐν τοῖς θείοις λόγοις (De Resurrect. 48 ; 
ed. Bonwetsch, i. 155). 

δ Εἴπερ ἀκριβῶς πιστεύομεν ἀναγεγράφθαι συνεργοῦντος καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου 
Πνεύματος τὰ εὐαγγέλια, καὶ μὴ ἐσφάλησαν ἐν τῷ ἀπομνημονεύειν οἱ γραψάντες 
αὐτά (Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12 ; Lomm. iv. 36). 


μηδενὸς σφαλλομένου τῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν μηδὲ ψευδομένου (Comm. in 
£2. Jo. vi. 18; Lomm. i. 228). 


38 7. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


sayings with a slight variation must really have been 
spoken at different times. And Novatian, who al- 
though the author of a schism was a very orthodox 
writer, says roundly that the Scriptures are infallible 
(xunguam fallunt) 1, 

The object of the appeal to Scripture is to establish 
the rule of faith or the rule of conduct. Irenaeus 
calls the written tradition as well as the oral teaching 
of the Apostles ‘the foundation and pillar of our 
faith. He lays himself out to prove his whole posi- 
tion by the Scriptures, and treats this method as one 
universally recognised*. Indeed on both sides, the 
side of doctrine and the side of practice, the authori- 
tative use of Scripture—the New Testament equally 
with the Old—underlies the whole of the Christian 
literature of-this period. Not only might we quote 
for it page after page of Irenaeus, Clement of Alex- 
andria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen (with the single 
exception of the Apologies, where the method would 
have been out of place), but—what is of even more 
importance—the method is shared alike by orthodox 
writers and heretical. It had been used by Basilides 
and Valentinus and their followers; and the great 
Church-writers fought them with the same weapons ; 
they authenticate Scripture by Scripture, Gospel by 
Gospel, and Epistle by Epistle—for in dealing with 
many of the Gnostics the Old Testament was out of 
_court. This usage is really coextensive with the 

De 72. 20; 

2 Adv. Haer. ii. 35. 43 cp. iii. 4. 1, 2: the written tradition forms 
the first line of evidence, oral tradition the second. 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 39 


Christian name, and arises very soon after the first 
traces of a Christian literature outside the New 
Testament. 

How high the authority was which is ascribed to 
the Scriptures comes out from the stress which is laid 
upon their interpretation. It appears equally from the 
methods of interpretation adopted by orthodox writers 
and the jealous watch kept over those who were not 
orthodox, Only in a book which is regarded as 
possessing peculiar sacredness and authority is the 
attempt likely to be made to elicit another sense from 
the words than the obvious and literal one. Now in 
the earliest known commentary on a book of the New 
Testament, that of the Gnostic Heracleon on St. John, 
which is probably not later and may even be some 
litleiptime) earlier) than) 170 Δ... the) allegorical 
method is already full-blown. It is notorious to what 
lengths it was carried by Clement of Alexandria and 
Origen. It may not be used quite to the same extent 
for the New Testament as for the Old, but it is used 
quite as unequivocally, and for the Epistles as well as 
for the Gospels*. It may suffice to note the fact of 
the use of allegory for the present. We shall have 
occasion to return to the subject in the next lecture, 
where we shall be brought to closer quarters with 
the origin and first application of the method. 


1 See Mr. A. E. Brooke in the Cambridge Zexts and Studies, i. 4. 34. 
The evidence relates perhaps rather to the teaching of Heracleon 
generally than to the Commentary on St. John, but the date given 
{c. 170) is probably not far wrong. 

? See Additional Note D, p. 68 f. 


40 JL. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


Complaints of the perversion of Scripture by the 
heretics are exceedingly common, and perhaps com- 
monest in the second century. The earliest reference 
to such perversion in the case of the New Testa- 
ment is probably the allusion in the Second Epistle 
which bears the name of St. Peter to the Epistles 
of St. Paul, ‘ which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest 
(στρεβλοῦσιν) as they do the other Scriptures’ We 
must only take this passage with the uncertainty which 
attaches to the genuineness and date of the Epistle 
in which it occurs. There were two methods of 
tampering with the Scriptures. One was the inter- 
polation or mutilation of the text; the other was 
the perversion of its meaning. It is now pretty 
generally understood that the accusations which we 
are constantly meeting under the first of these heads 
are for the most part groundless. One such attempt 
we certainly do know, the attempt of Marcion the 
Gnostic to adapt to his own purposes the Gospel 
of St. Luke and ten of St. Pauls Epistles. But 
he did so simply by excision of the passages to 
which he objected. The charge of altering the text 
of the portions which he received, generally speaking’, 
breaks down. The supposed alterations are in so 
many cases demonstrably nothing more than various 
readings which he found in his copy as to give rise 
to considerable presumption that the same would be 
true of the remainder. There are other well-known 


1 2 Pet. iii. 16. 
* This must not be taken to exclude slight consequential. changes 
due to the omissions. 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 41 


examples? in which not only does the Catholic writer 
wrongly accuse his opponents of falsifying the text, 
but in point of fact it is his opponents who have 
the right reading, and he himself who is misled by a 
wrong one 3. 

The other means of commending error by perverse 
interpretation was no doubt farmorecommon. Tertul- 
lian* and Irenaeus‘ with equal vehemence accuse the 
Valentinians. An anonymous writer quoted by Euse- 
bius accuses the rationalizing Monarchians®. Hippo- 
lytus urges his readers not to ‘force’ the Word of 
God °. 

And yet it must be admitted that the ‘ forcing’ was 
not all on one side. Both the orthodox champions 
and the heterodox employed such methods as were 
current, and there was probably no great difference 
between them so faras these methods were concerned, 
though the mind of the Church was doubtless 
governed by an instinct which was nearer the truth 


1 See (e.g.) the various readings on John i. 13; iii. 63 vii. 53- 
viii, 11; Luke xxiii. 44; and perhaps Matt. i. 18. 

2 Compare Hort, /z/rod. p. 282 : ‘ It will not be out of place to add 
here a distinct expression of our belief that even among the numerous 
unquestionably spurious readings of the New Testament there are no 
signs of deliberate falsification of the text for dogmatic purposes.’ 
And again, Appendix, p. 66: ‘Notwithstanding the random sug- 
gestions of rash or dishonest handling thrown out by controversialists 
there is no tangible evidence for the excision [except by Marcion] of 
a substantial portion of narrative for doctrinal reasons at any period 
of textual history.’ 

° De Praescr. Haeret. 38. * Ado. dd ager, 15.3 Ὁ: 

PVs 28. 

® Contra Noetum, 9: μὴ βιαζόμενοι τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ δεδομένα. 


4 I, The New Testament in the Early Church. 


than any argument that could be put into words. Se- 
curus gudicat ordis terrarum. There were question- 
able points in the exegesis of Irenaeus and Hippolytus 
as well as in that of Basilides or the Valentinians ; 
there were questionable points in the exegesis of 
Athanasius as well as in that of Arius; but it is 
possible to admit this and yet to think that Irenaeus 
and Hippolytus on the one hand, and Athanasius and 
his fellows on the other, represented more truly the 
real sense of Scripture than the Gnostics or Arians. 
And yet the right is sometimes on the side of the 
minority. On this very matter of the inspiration of 
Holy Scripture we come across isolated sayings from 
time to time which show a greater insight into the 
real facts of the case, and would have formed a whole- 
some corrective to the current views if more attention 
had been paid to them. Even a writer who holds so 
high a doctrine as Tertullian yet points out that 
St. Paul recognises different degrees of inspiration, 
sometimes speaking in his own name and not in the 
name of Christ’. The same passage which put him 
upon this also caught the eye of Origen, and is more 
than once used by him in support of a wider view in 
regard to an ascending and descending scale of in- 
spiration. Origen saw that there was a difference 


* De Exhort. Cast. 3: In primis autem non videbor trreligiosus, st 
quod ipse profiletur, animadvertam, omnem illam indulgentiam nupti- 
arum de suo, td est, de humano sensu, non de dtvino praescripto induxisse. 
The apologetic language in which this opinion is introduced reveals 
a consciousness that it ran somewhat counter to general feeling. 
Any seeming depreciation of Scripture was as unpopular even then as 
it is now. 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 43 


between the inspiration of Christ and all other in- 
spiration'. The inspiration of the prophets was given 
them at particular times and for particular purposes ; 
they had visitations of the Spirit which ceased when 
they had served their turn. Only upon Christ did 
the Holy Spirit abide continually ®. 

We may probably trace the influence of Origen, 
though it is certainly not Origen himself who 1s 
speaking, in a remarkable criticism to which Jerome 
refers in the preface to his commentary on the Epistle 
to Philemon. He says that some who refuse a place 
to this among the other Epistles of St. Paul urge that 
all the Apostle’s utterances were not made by ‘ Christ 
speaking in him’ because the weakness of human 
nature could not endure the constant indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit (asaum tenorem Spiritus Sanctt), nor yet 
could the ordinary functions of the body be always 
discharged under the presence of the Lord. There 
must have been times when St. Paul could not venture 
to say ‘I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ 
(Gal. i. 20), or ‘do ye seek a proof of Christ that 
speaketh in me’ (2 Cor. xiii. 3)? ‘ What sort of proof 
of Christ is it, they ask, to be told “The cloak 
which I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, 


’ 


bring with thee” (2 Tim. iv. 13), or in Galatians (v. 12) 

“1 would they were even cut off” (or ‘were mutilated,’ 

excidantur Ὁ) “that trouble you,” and in this very 

Epistle, “ But withal prepare me also a lodging” (Philem. 

i. 22)? They say that this was the case not only with 
* Hom.in Num. xvi. 4; in Ev. Jo. i. 5 (Zahn, Gesch. d. K. ii. 1002). 
* See the passages quoted by Zahn. 


44 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


the Apostles but with the Prophets; so that we often 
find it written, “The word of the Lord came to Eze- 
kiel” or to any other of the prophets, because when 
the prophecy was finished the prophet resumed his 
ordinary self and became like any other man, and ex- 
cept our Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit abode 
permanently with no one. And that this was the sign 
which John the Baptist had received, that on whom he 
saw the Holy Spirit descending and abiding upon him 
he might know to be the Christ (John i. 33). A proof 
that the Holy Spirit descended indeed upon many, 
but it was a peculiar distinction of the Saviour that it 
abode upon him. On these and other like grounds,’ 
says Jerome, ‘they decide that the Epistle to Phile- 
mon either is not St. Paul's, or, even if it is his, it 
contains nothing that tends to edification, and they 
say that it is rejected by many of the ancients as 
being only a letter of commendation and not for the 
purpose of teaching 1’ 

We may differ from this ancient critic in our esti- 
mate of the beautiful little Epistle to Philemon, with 
its touches of nature which appeal to the common 
heart of mankind. We may have different ideas as to 
the true dignity of an inspired writer. And yet we 
must admit that he has hit upon truths in regard to the 
nature of inspiration which have by no means always 
been remembered, and which it is important to keep 
in sight, 

There are not wanting other indications that side by 


* Comm. in Ep. ad Philem., prol. (ed. Migne, vii. 637 ; ed. Vallarsi, 
vii. 742 f.). 


Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 45 


side with the high and strict doctrine of which we have 
given illustrations, there was a sort of under-current, 
sometimes perceptible in the very same writers, which 
took more account of human infirmity and was in closer 
contact with the facts. There was not indeed any hard 
and fast dogma of inspiration imposed upon the whole 
Church. Men formed a high idea of it, and they clung 
to that idea, largely we cannot doubt from a sense of 
the preciousness of the Scriptures to themselves. But 
this did not prevent them at other times and in pursu- 
ance of other trains of thought from giving the reins to 
a freer and more candid observation, and allowing the 
facts to tell their own story in a simpler and more 
natural theory. 

‘Quite of this simple and natural character is the 
account which Papias gives of the origin of St. Mark’s 
Gospel, put together from notes of the occasional 
preaching of St. Peter, and therefore incomplete though 
careful as far as it went’. This is in perfect keeping 
with the language which St. Luke uses in the preface to 
his own Gospel, which again describes a purely natural 
process based upon the human virtues of research and 
care, but without claim to anything beyond. In like 
manner the Muratorian Fragment, while apparently 
repeating a tradition similar to that of Papias about 
St. Mark ?, lays stress upon the extent to which St. 
Luke was an eye-witness of the events recorded in the 
Acts, and St. John of those recorded in his Gospel. 


pelts, 27, 2. 1-30. If. 
* This part of the Fragment is mutilated, but the words which 
remain point to this conclusion. 


46 I. The New Lestament in the Early Church. 


Origen in the context of a passage already quoted 
implies that in his day there were persons who thought 
it possible that the discrepancies in the Gospels were 
due to inaccuracy and failure of memory! Origen 
himself, as we have seen, rejects this explanation ; but 
in another place he admits the possibility at least of 
clerical error. This is in his comment on St. Matt. 
xxvii. 9?, where a quotation from Zechariah is attributed 
to Jeremiah. The passage is a touchstone to ancient 
commentators. Eusebius, like Origen, gives an altern- 
ative : either clerical error, or that the original of the 
quotation had been fraudulently removed from the 
copies of Jeremiah. Augustine first rejects, by a 
piece of really good textual criticism ‘, the reading fer 
prophetam only (without Yeremzam) which he found in 
some MSS., but then goes on to say that St. Matthew 
was inspired to write ‘Jeremiah’ in order to bring 
out the completeness of the agreement between 


1 Comm. in Ev, Jo. vi. 18; Lomm. i. 228 f.: οὐ yap περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν, 
ὡς οἴονταί τινες οἱ ἀπομνημονεύοντες διαφόρως ἠνεχθήσαν, μὴ ἀκριβοῦντες TH 
μνήμῃ ἕκαστον τῶν εἰρημένων ἢ γεγενημένων. 

2 Lommatzsch, v. 28: suspicor aut errorem esse scriplurae [Scrip- 
durae, Lommatzsch, which is surely wrong] ef pro Zacharia posttum 
Jeremiam, aut esse aliquam secretam Jeremiae scripluram, im qua 
scribitur. 

8 Demonst. Evang. x; ed. Migne, iv. 745. 

* Sed utalur ista defensione cut placet: mthi autem cur non placeat, 
haec caussa est, quia et plures codices habent Jeremiae nomen, et quit 
diligentius in Graects exemplaribus consideraverunt, in antiquis Graects 
tla se perhibent invenisse: οἱ nulla fuit caussa cur adderetur hoc nomen, 
ut mendositas fieret; cur autem de nonnullis codicibus tolleretur furt 
uligue caussa ut audax imperitia facerel, cum turbaretur quaestione 
guod hoc testimontum apud Jeremiam non tnveniretur. 


Criterta applied to the New Lestament. 41 


the prophets, so that sayings of Zechariah might 
be claimed by Jeremiah and wee versa’. Jerome 
has not only heard of but seen an apocryphal work 
of Jeremiah in which the words quoted occur: he 
does not however adopt that solution, but simply 
remarks that the passage is not in Jeremiah but ex- 
presses the sense of a place in Zechariah*®, The 
Breviarium in Psalmos, which is printed with the 
works of Jerome, treats together of St. Matt. xiii, 35 
(with the reading ‘ Isaiah’) and xxvii. 9, and ends with 
the frank avowal of a mistake, but apparently on the 
part of the scribes not of the Evangelist, in both places 
(Videtis ergo guia et hic error furt sicut 262). 


‘III. But now we have reached the third and last of 
our main questions. We have traced backwards the 
process by which the New Testament received its 
present dimensions, and we have endeavoured to define 
what was understood by the New Testament as a 
Sacred Volume. It remains for us to ask by what 
criteria the several books were admitted to their 
place in that volume, or in other words what were 
taken to be the tests of the presence or absence of 
inspiration. 


The general test which determined the place of a 
book in the New Testament was no doubt Afostolicity. 


1 De Cons. Evang. iii. 29, 30; ed. Benedict. iii. 2. r14 f. 
2 Comm. in Ev. Matt. ad \oc.; ed. Migne, vii. 213; ed. Vallarsi, 
8. 


fi, 2.2 
> Ed. Migne, vil. 1108. 


Jet S) 


οι 


48 JI. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


When the writer of the Muratorian Fragment declares 
against the admission of the Shepherd of Hermas into 
the Canon, he does so on the ground that it is too 
recent, and that it cannot have a place ‘among the 
Prophets whose number. is complete, nor yet among 
the Apostles in these latter days.’ As ‘the Prophets’ 
here stand for the Old Testament, so ‘ the Apostles’ are 
practically equivalent to the New’. 

This agrees with the whole tendency of the age 
in which the Fragmentist was writing. As there grew 
up round the Church in the second century a crowd of 
tentative theories for the explanation of the universe 
into which Christianity was worked with more or less 
of modification, and as among Christians who were 
unaffected by these external theories different shades of 
doctrine began to prevail, it was necessary to fix upon 
some standard by which competing views might be 
judged and verified. It was natural that this standard 
should be sought in the teaching of the Apostles as the 
best interpretation of the mind of Christ Himself. ‘We 
walk,’ says Tertullian, ‘by that rule which the Church 
has handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles 
from Christ, and Christ from God?” There was a 
double guarantee for this tradition, the written Word 
and the historic continuity of the Apostolic Churches. 
The heretics, according to the argument which Tertul- 
lian wields with so much forensic skill, were really 
debarred from appealing to the Scriptures because 


2 
1 So Kuhn, ad doc. 


2 De Praescr. Haeret. 3]. Compare Serapion as quoted above, 
Ρ' 33: 


Criteria applied to the New Testament. 49 


they stood outside the Churches which were the 
proper guardians of those Scriptures. Tertullian 
claims to be himself ‘heir to the Apostles’ by his 
loyalty to the faith which they had bequeathed. The 
Apostles had disinherited and repudiated the heretics 
who were not true to that faith but struck out new 
ways of thinking of their own. 

Before Tertullian Irenaeus had taken up substantially 
the same ground. He too lays down that the ‘ plan of 
our salvation’ (dzsposztionem salutis nostrae) had only 
become known through those who first preached the 
Gospel and then handed it on to us in the Scriptures 1. 
With these the oral tradition transmitted through suc- 
cessors of the Apostles is wholly consonant, The 
double tradition, written and oral, is a storehouse of 
truth which the Apostles have formed from which 
every one may take as he will*. The preaching and 
the writings of the Apostles along with those of the 
Prophets and the teaching of the Lord supply the 
premises for his argument*. And even Clement of 
Alexandria adopts a similar line of reasoning. He 
appeals to the Scriptures as carrying with them the 
authority of the Prophets in the Old Testament, and of 
the Lord and the Apostles in the New®; and he too, 
like Tertullian, claimed first that the tradition derived 
from the Apostles is one and the same, and secondly 
that it proves its truth by its priority to the heresies®. 

But this tendency to appeal to the authority of the | 


1 Ady. Haer. iii. τ. τ. 2 χά, 5. τ. 
mora. ὁ: 1. * Ibid, ii. 35. 4. 
© Strom. vii. τό. §§ 95, 97. © bid. δὲ 106, 108. 


δο 7. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


Apostles can really be traced much further back, in 
fact to the confines of the New Testament itself. The 
now famous Vzdaché is put forward in the name of the 
Twelve Apostles. Ignatius would ‘have recourse to 
the Gospel as the flesh of Christ, and to the Apostles 
as the presbytery’ (or ‘governing body’) ‘of the 
Church?’ Clement of Rome refers the Corinthians to 
the Epistle which the blessed Apostle Paul wrote to 
them under the influence of the Spirit (πνευματικῶς) ", 
And Justin, though he is not writing for Christians 
and therefore does not need to lay stress on the point, 
yet calls the Gospels ‘ Memoirs of the Apostles, and is 
careful to note that the Apocalypse is the work of an 
Apostle *. 

We observe however that in the Muratorian Frag- 
ment there is still a healthy feeling that the authority 
of the Apostles is not merely of the nature of dogmatic 
assertion. In all that he says about the Historical 
Books the writer insists on the personal qualification 
of the authors either as eye-witnesses, or as careful 
historians 4, 

The Fragmentist takes his stand on the position of 
the Canon in his own day, and it is that position of 
which he gives an account. But the idea of Aposto- 
licity did not exactly cover the contents of that Canon. 
Three of the Historical Books just mentioned were 
not by Apostles. And in the debates relating to the 


1 Ad Philad. &. 2 Ad Cor. 44. τῇ 

° Apol. i. 66,67; Dial. c. Tryph. 88, 101, 103, 104, 106; and for 
the Apocalypse, Dra/. 81. 

* See above, p. 45. 


Criteria applied to the New Testament. οι 


Epistle to the Hebrews the same difficulty was evi- 
dently felt. There were two ways out of it. One 
was to regard the works in question, if not directly 
Apostolic, as vouched for by Apostles ; the Gospel of 
St. Mark going back virtually to St. Peter, the writings 
of St. Luke to St. Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews 
deriving its substance, if not its actual words, from 
the same Apostle. This expedient was adopted very 
early'. The other was to lay stress, not so much on 
Apostolic authorship as on reception by the Churches. 
This was a parallel line of argument all through the 
history of the Canon. Reception by the Churches 
clearly admitted of degrees*, and reception by the 
Apostolic Churches took the next place as an argu- 
ment to certainly Apostolic origin. In the later stages 
of the history ecclesiastical usage proved decisive. It 
is the principle which runs through the Canon of 
Origen, and after Origen still more distinctly through 
that of Eusebius, St. Augustine lays it down very 


1 Tertullian, Adv. Mare. iv. 5: Marcus quod edidit evangelium Petri 
afirmatur, cujus interpres Marcus. Nam et Lucae digestum Paulo ad- 
scribere solent. Cf. for St. Mark, Eus. Demonstr. Evang. iii. 5 (ed. 
Migne, iv. 217): for St. Luke, Iren. Adv. Maer, iii. τ. τ, 14.15; Tert. 
Adv. Marc. iv. 2; Orig. ap. Eus. H. £. vi. 25.6, Eus. himself quoting 
common report, 7. £. ii. 4. 8, Χο. Tertullian takes a rather different 
line in regard to Ep. to Hebrews. He places it a step, but only a 
single step, below the writings of the Apostles: Volo amen ex redun- 
dantia alicujus etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superducere, tdoneum 
confirmart de proximo jure disciplinam magistrorum. Extat et Bar- 
nabae titulus ad Hebraeos,a Deo satis auctorati virt, &c. (De Pudic. 20). 

2. Tertullian uses the comparative recepiior apud ecclestas of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews as compared with the Shepherd of Hermas 
(De Pudic. 20, as above). 


E 2 


52 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


explicitly. ‘In regard to the Canonical Scriptures let 
him follow the authority of as many as possible of the 
Catholic Churches, among which of course are those 
which are of Apostolic foundation or were thought 
worthy to have Epistles addressed to them. He will 
therefore follow this rule as to the Canonical Scriptures, 
to prefer those which are accepted by all the Catholic 
Churches to those which are not accepted by some; 
and among those which are not accepted by all to prefer 
those which the greater and more important Churches 
accept to those which are supported by fewer Churches 
or those of less authority!’ Jerome supplements this, 
with a scholar’s instinct basing his individual opinion 
more upon the verdict of eminent and ancient authors. 
Writing with something of the freedom of private 
correspondence, he says that ‘it does not matter who 
is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as in any 
case it is the work of a Church-writer (ecclescasteci 
virt) and is constantly read in the Churches®’ As 
the Latin Churches reject Hebrews so the Greek — 
Churches reject the Apocalypse, but Jerome himself 
accepts both on the ground that they are quoted by 
ancient writers as canonical. I do not know that there 
is any instance in which Apostolic authorship is so 
expressly abandoned as a necessary condition of 
Canonicity. We have at the same time brought out 
another factor which also runs through the whole of 


1 De Doct, Christ. ii. 8. § 12. 

2 Nihil interesse cujus sit, quum ecclestastict virt stt, et quotidte 
ecclesiarum lectione celebretur (Ep. cxxix. ad Dardanum; ed. Migne, 
i. 1103; ed. Vallarsi, i. g71). 


Criteria applied to the New Testament. 53 


the history, the influence of leading individuals, 
whether of bishops or scholars, in determining the 
usage of the Churches. It is in this way that Irenaeus 
appeals to the ‘presbyters,’ that Clement appeals to 
Pantaenus?! and Origen to the ἀρχαῖοι ἄνδρες *, and that 
Eusebius also rests his judgment on that of leading 
Churchmen (of ἐκκλησιαστικοί) ἢ, The further back we 
go the more weight such individual opinions doubtless 
possessed. The usage of particular Churches would 
be determined, especially at the earliest and most 
critical stage, by those of its members who carried the 
greatest weight whether invested with formal authority 
or not, but especially when invested with such authority, 
or at least through the direct intervention of those who 
possessed it*. The judgment of individuals would 
thus pass into and be lost in the judgment of the 
Society ; and the combined judgment of these societies 
would be the verdict of the Catholic Church. 

The whole process was checked at each step by 
an active and jealous sense of what was Catholic in 
doctrine. Just as under the Old Covenant the 
message of a prophet was to be tested not merely 
by the success of his predictions but by the agree- 
ment of the substance of his prophecy with the funda- 


Agi US. £22 2a Viet τῇ: 

ford. 25 Ὁ 7277: 1: 25. 

* Instances in which learning was on one side and episcopal 
authority on the other would be Origen and Demetrius at Alexandria, 
or. Hippolytus and Zephyrinus with his successor Callistus at 
Rome; but there would be many other examples of the opposite 
state of things where the bishop took the advice of his leading 
presbyters. 


54 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


mentals of Israel's religion, so also under the New 
Covenant it is clear that writings which came with 
any claim to be considered canonical were judged by 
the nature of their contents. The Muratorian Frag- 
mentist will not have ‘gall mixed with honey.’ He 
rejects with decision the works of the heretics; just 
as Irenaeus and Tertullian and writers as far back 
as Agrippa Castor in the time of Hadrian reject 
them’. It is often objected that this is an argu- 
ment in a circle, because the Scriptures are used to 
establish Church doctrine, and then Church doctrine is 
used—not as the only test but as one of the tests— 
to determine what is Scripture. But there is not 
really a fetitio princifiz here any more than there 
was in the testing of a prophet’s message. There 
was enough New Testament Scripture, as there was 
enough Old Testament teaching, established on a firm 
and unshakeable basis to be used as a standard in 
judging of the rest. There were writings as to the 
authorship of which the early Church had not a 
shadow of doubt, and those writings continued to speak 
with the same personal weight with which their living 
authors had spoken. Here was a fixed standard to 
which doubtful writings could be referred. On the 
strength of it was drawn up before the middle of the 
second century that short summary of Christian 
Doctrine which formed the basis of what is known 
to us as ‘the Apostles’ Creed.’ And round the out- 
skirts of this there grew up a larger Church con- 
sciousness, fed and nurtured upon the unquestioned 
+ Ens, By 2. ivi ἢ: δ. ἢ. 


Criteria applied to the New Testament. 55 


documents, which became itself a touchstone to decide 
what was the ‘analogy of the faith.’ I do not say 
that it was an infallible touchstone. I only say that 
it was one which did exist, and which was applied by 
the men of those days according to the best of their 
lights, and without any clear logical fallacy. 

The standard thus obtained worked in two direc- 
tions. On the one hand it excluded any writing 
which did not satisfy it in regard to doctrine; and 
on the other hand it also excluded, or had a tendency 
to exclude, any writing which clashed with those 
already received in matters of history. This was the 
objection brought by the Alogi against the Gospel 
of St. John?. It gave force to the charge brought 
by Apollinaris against the Quartodecimans that by 
their practice they made the Gospels conflict with one 
another*, And Origen treats it as a principle ac- | 
cepted by most if not by all that the Gospels cannot 
disagree *. 

There remains one more test which the ancients 
applied, and of which it is all the more incumbent on 
me to speak, because it has been the subject of much 
ridicule and has helped perhaps more than anything to 
bring the work of the early Canon-makers into dis- 
credit. I refer to the use of numbers, of which we have 
conspicuous examples in Irenaeus and the Muratorian 

1 Epiph. Haer. li. 4: οὐ συμφωνεῖ τὰ αὐτοῦ βιβλία τοῖς λοιποῖς 
ἀποστόλοις. 

* Chron. Pasch. i. p. 13 (ed. Dindorf). 

3 Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12 (Lomm. iv. 36): ‘O μὲν οὖν τῇ ἱστορίᾳ | 


ψιλῇ παριστάμενος, καὶ μὴ βουλόμενος διαφωνεῖν τοὺς εὐαγγελιστάς, compared | 
with what follows, Εἴπερ γὰρ ἀκριβῶς πιστεύομεν ἀναγεγράφθαι, κ.τ.λ. 


56 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


Fragment, but which was employed equally in regard 
to the Old Testament and in regard to the New’. 
According to Irenaeus, there must be four Gospels, as 
there are four quarters of the globe and four cardinal 
winds*. Even Origen compares the Four Gospels to 
the four elements *. And the Muratorian Fragmentist 
makes out, as he can do indeed without forcing, that 
St. Paul wrote exactly to seven Churches, as St. John 
also in the Epistles attached to the Apocalypse. In 
this stress on the number seven there is clearly 
an allusion to the idea of universality, the seven 
Churches in each case symbolizing the Church unt- 
versal. The idea is no doubt connected with the 
revival of Pythagoreanism and the doctrine of the 
value of numbers‘. It is of course not at all a 
specially Christian idea, but is simply an application to 
Christian subjects of intellectual methods current at the 
time. The estimate of these methods belongs to the 
general history of culture, and in a very subordinate 


? It is perhaps true (as Mr. Lock suggests to me) that this use of 
numbers was more often a symbolical interpretation of the facts after 
the settlement of the different parts of the Canon than a means 
employed in that settlement, I suspect however that it had something 
to do with predisposing men’s minds to accept the Epistle to the 
Hebrews as St. Paul’s and so making up a total of 14 Epistles (2 x 7), 
and also perhaps in determining the number of the Catholic Epistles. 
We should thus have a complete system of sevens. St. Paul and 
St. John wrote alike to 7 churches (cf Fragm. Mur.); Epp. Cath. 
are 7, and Epp. Paul. twice 7. 

? Adv. Haer. iii. 11. 8. 

° Comm. in Ev. Joan. i. 6; Lomm. i. 13. 

* SeeDr.C.Taylor, Hermas and the Four Gospels (Cambridge, 1892), 
p- 20. 


Criteria applied to the New Testament. 51 


degree to the history of Christianity. In order to 
be fair to them we need to place them alongside of 
those wonderful guesses at the constituent elements 
of the universe made by the early Greek philosophers. 
Let us realize for a moment the chaos in which 
thinking must have been involved before the invention 
of numbers, and realize also the impression which must 
have been made upon men’s minds after their inven- 
tion as day by day new properties were discovered in 
them, and we shall not I think be surprised if a mystic 
power sometimes seemed to attach to them, and if they 
were applied as a key to the solution of problems to 
which they were really foreign. But those who infer 
that because Irenaeus uses arguments such as this in 
regard to the Four Gospels, he is therefore a puerile 
and contemptible writer, probably in most cases have 
not read Irenaeus at all, or, if they have read him, have 
done so without eyes to see, or imagination to enter 
into, a phase of civilization in any way different from 
their own. 

Irenaeus no doubt uses arguments which are some- 
times good andsometimes bad; and so did others who 
were concerned with the forming of the Canon. But it 
is an often-told story that conclusions may be better 
than the reasons that are givenforthem. The process 
by which the Early Church defined the limits of its 
Scriptures was like the process by which opinion has 
ripened on many another subject before and since. 
There entered into it a number of varied elements ; 
reasoning partly conscious and partly unconscious, 
authority, usage, the sense of affinity to things spiritual 


58 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. 


and of harmony between spiritual things already realized 
and appropriated, and others lying beyond, where the 
realization and appropriation was still to come. And 
may not the Christian think that there was something 
even more than this? May he not think that there 
is truth in the promise of Him who said, ‘ Lo, I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the world’? 
It would not even then follow that all was perfection. 
It does not seem to be the Will of God that either the 
World or the Church should leap into perfection all at 
once, or even make way towards perfection except by 
gradual and slowdegrees. In all ages it has been His 
Will to give His servants light enough to walk by ; and 
that light has gone on broadening down the centuries 
till it has reached ourselves, in measures fuller perhaps 
than have been vouchsafed to any generation before, 
Such privileges bring at once difficulties and responsi- 
bilities. The very fact that the light given to us now 
is penetrating into the more hidden recesses may well 
make it seem at times garish and disturbing. Let us 
wait awhile patiently and our eyes will get used to it. 
And, if we are tempted to elation at our superior 
knowledge, let us remember St. Paul's warning, ‘ Be not 
high-minded, but fear’; and again, let us remember 
that ‘Towhom much is given, of him shall much be 
required,’ 


Notes to Lecture TI, 59 


NOTE: 7: 


The Canons of the Quintsextine Council, of Carthage, 
and of Laoduicea. 


IT may be convenient for the reader to have before him 
the text of the only synodical decisions of the Early Church 
relating to the Canon. 

CONCILIUM QUINISEXTUM (an. 692), Caz. ii. ... ἐπισφρα- 
γίζομεν δὲ καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς πάντας ἱεροὺς κανόνας τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν 
ἁγίων καὶ μακαρίων πατέρων ἡμῶν ἐκτεθέντας, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστι τῶν τε 
ἐν Νικαίᾳ συναθροισθέντων τριακοσίων δεκαοκτὼ θεοφόρων ἁγίων 
πατέρων καὶ τῶν ἐν ᾿Αγκύρᾳ.... ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τῶν ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ 
τῆς Φρυγίας... ὡσαύτως καὶ τῶν ἐν Σαρδικῇ, ἔτι μὴν καὶ τῶν ἐν 
Καρθαγένῃ [the only Western Councils mentioned]... ᾿᾽Αθα- 
νασίου ἀρχιεπισκόπου ᾿Αλεξανδρείας ... Γρηγορίου τοῦ θεολόγου, 
᾿Αμφιλοχίου ᾿Ικονίου . .. καὶ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι τοὺς προδηλωθέντας 
παραχαράττειν κανόνας ἢ ἀθετεῖν ἢ ἑτέρους παρὰ τοὺς προκει- 
μένους παραδέχεσθαι κανόνας ψευδεπιγράφως ὑπό τινων συντεθέντας 
τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καπηλεύειν ἐπιχειρησάντων ... 

(From Bruns, Canones Apost. et Concil. Vet. Selecti, Berolini, 
1839, p. 361) 

It will be observed here that κανών = any formulated and 
authoritative rule or set of rules, whether laid down by a 
Council or by some individual Churchman. Only some of 
those which were thus sanctioned contained lists of the Sacred 
Books. 

Conc. Carthag. iv. (an. 419), Caz. xxiv. ratifies Conc. Car- 
thag. iii. (an. 397), Caz. xlvii, which is given thus by Bruns, 
a few various readings from English MSS. being contributed 
by Dr. Westcott. 


60 Notes to Lecture I. 


CONCILIUM CARTHAGINIENSE III. (an. 397), Can. xlvii. 
‘Item placuit, ut praeter scripturas canonicas nihil in ecclesia 
legatur sub nomine divinarum scripturarum. Sunt autem 
canonicae scripturae [ +hae W.]: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
Numeri, Deuteronomium, Jesus Nave, Judicum, Ruth, Reg- 
norum libri quatuor, Paralipomenon libri duo, Job, Psalterium 
Davidicum, Salomonis libri quinque, libri duodecim Prophe- 
tarum, Jesaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobias, Judith, 
Esther, Esdrae libri duo, Machabaeorum libri duo. Novi 
autem Testamenti, Evangeliorum libri quatuor, Actuum 
Apostolorum liber unus, Pauli apostoli epistolae tredecim, 
eiusdem ad Hebraeos una, Petri apostoli duae, Joannis ap. 
[om. W.] tres, Judae ap. una et Jacobi una [Jacobi i., Judae 1, 
W.], Apocalypsis Joannis liber unus. Hoc etiam fratri et 
consacerdoti nostro Bonifacio vel aliis earum partium epi- 
scopis pro confirmando isto canone innotescat, quia a patribus 
ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda. Liceat etiam [autem W.] 
legi passiones martyrum, cum anniversarii dies eorum cele- 
brantur,’ 

The presence of the clause providing for the sending of 
the list to Pope Boniface (418-422 A.D.) shows that this form 
of the Canon really belongs to the Council of 419. With it 
should be compared Brev. Statut. Hippon. xxxvi. as given 
by Zahn (Gesch. d. K.ii. 251 f.), the text of which is however 
clearly in an uncertain condition. 

It is generally agreed that the list appended as Caz. 1x. to 
the Council of Laodicea is not original, but as it may be 
included in the sanction of the Quinisextine Council, it seems 
best to give it with the variants of Westcott and Zahn. 

CONCILIUM LAODICENUM (an. circ. 363), Can. lix. Ὅτι 
ov δεῖ ἰδιωτικοὺς ψαλμοὺς λέγεσθαι ἐν TH ἐκκλησίᾳ οὐδὲ ἀκανόνιστα 
βιβλία, ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ κανονικὰ τῆς καινῆς καὶ παλαιᾶς διαθήκης. 

[Ix. Ὅσα δεῖ βιβλία ἀναγινώσκεσθαι τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης" 
a’ Γένεσις κόσμους β΄ "E€odos ἐξ [om. Z.| Αἰγύπτου. γ' Λευιτικόν. 
δ΄ ᾽᾿Αριθμοί. ε΄ Δευτερονόμιον. ς΄ Ἰησοῦς Ναυῆ. ζ΄ Κριταί, 
Ῥούθ. η΄ ᾿Ἔσθήρ. θ’ Βασιλειῶν πρώτη καὶ δευτέρα. ι΄ Βασιλειῶν 
τρίτη καὶ τετάρτη. ια΄ ΠΙαραλειπόμενα πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον. 13 


Note 8. 61 


"Eodpas πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον. ιγ΄ Βίβλος Ψαλμῶν ἑκατὸν πεντή- 
κοντα. 10 Παροιμίαι Σολομῶντος. ιε΄ Ἐκκλησιαστής. us’ “Acpa 
ἀσμάτων. ιζ΄ Ἰώβ. ιη΄ Δώδεκα προφῆται. ιθ΄ Ἡσαΐας. κ' 
᾿Ιερεμίας καὶ Βαρούχ, Θρηνοὶ καὶ ᾿Ἐπιστολαί. xa’ ᾿Ιεζεκιήλ. κβ΄ 
Δανιήλ. 

Τὰ δὲ τῆς [unc. incl. Ζ.] καινῆς διαθήκης ταῦτα [om. W., unc. 
incl. Z.|. Ἐϊαγγέλια τέσσαρα, κατὰ Ματθαῖον, κατὰ Μάρκον, κατὰ 
Λουκᾶν, κατὰ Ἰωάννην. Πράξεις ἀποστόλων. ᾿Επιστολαὶ καθολικαὶ 
ἑπτά: οὕτως [om. Z.]. ᾿Ιακώβου μία, Πέτρου δύο, Ἰωάννου τρεῖς, 
᾿Ιούδα pia. ᾿Επιστολαὶ Παύλου δεκατέσσαρες" πρὸς Ρωμαίους μία, 
πρὸς Κορινθίους δύο, πρὸς Γαλάτας μία, πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους μία, πρὸς 
Φιλιππησίους μία, πρὸς Κολοσσαεῖς μία, πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς δύο, 
πρὸς “Ἑβραίους μία, πρὸς Τιμόθεον δύο, πρὸς Τίτον μία, πρὸς Φιλή- 
μονα μία. 


NOTE SE. 


Harnack’s Theory of the Growth of the New 


Testament Canon. 


HARNACK’S theory of the growth of the New Testament 
Canon can be stated, and is sometimes stated by himself, in 
a way to which exception need not be taken. But it is no 
less difficult to reconcile the language which he uses on some 
occasions with that which is used on others than to bring 
these latter passages into harmony with the facts. Perhaps 
the best summary of his views with which I am acquainted is 
that which is given at the end of the tract Das Neue Testa- 
ment von das Fahr 200; but it is just here that the opposition 
between the two sides of his theory comes out most clearly. 
I proceed to quote what seems to be the central part of 
this summary, numbering the sentences for convenience of 
reference. 


(1) ‘The New Testament in the strict sense of the word is every- 
where, wherever it emerges, something sudden; that is, the complete 
equation of the written word of the Apostles with the written word of 


62 Notes to Lecture I. 


the Lord, the incorporation of the Acts in the Canon, and the concep- 
tion of the whole collection as the tradition of the Apostolic teaching 
deposited in written books, forming a complete whole, and placed 
beyond competition (die in Schriften niedergelegte, abgeschlossene 
unerreichbare apostolische Lehrtradition) had no previous history in 
the strict sense of the word, but must be described as a change of 
interest in the Holy Scriptures, brought about by controversy with 
Gnosticism and Montanism. (2) But Holy Christian Writings or 
Scriptures the Church had long possessed (hatte man langst); indeed 
there was a time when it believed to a large extent that among the 
Christian writings which it possessed there was nothing which was not 
holy ; because the Church knew that it was holy itself, and it knew 
also that every word was holy which was spoken or written in the 
name and to the praise of Christ (Acts xv. 28; 1 Cor. xii. 3; 1 Clem. 
63). (3) Besides this there were holy Apostles, prophets and teachers ; 
for the degrees and kinds of holiness were very various, as were the 
gifts of the Holy Ghost. (4) In the first age there was not much 
writing; but such writings as there were, were early collected and 
diffused. (5) So there came to be similar collections in the different 
district churches, in the greater churches no doubt several of these 
collections. (6) The dignity of the writings contained in them was, 
according as one likes to take it, either very great or very small. 
(7) Very great; because all was holy which preached the name of 
Christ, especially if it proceeded from Apostles, prophets and teachers : 
very small; because they did not yet attain to the position either of 
the Old Testament, the Sacred Volume of highest antiquity, or the 
Word of the Lord, and every new utterance of the Spirit might 
interpret or supersede that which had gone before.’ 


In this passage the sentences numbered 2—5 seem to me to 
describe very well the real state of the case. Those numbered 
6 and 7 (in the second alternative) are an exaggeration ; 
because the prophets of the New Covenant were on precisely 
the same footing with those of the Old, and the Apostles 
represented something still higher and more authoritative 
than the prophets. But the first sentence of all is diametri- 
cally opposed to those which follow. It makes a gulf 
between the spoken word and the written word which cer- 
tainly did not exist. It assumes a breach of continuity where 
there is no breach but simply the direct and inevitable 


Note B. 63 


development of conditions present from the first. As the 
following sentences show, the potentiality of the New Testa- 
ment was there from the first moment when the Lord and 
His Apostles began to open their lips in public teaching. 
There was never any change in the estimate of the value and | 
authority of that teaching. It is true that there were descend- 
ing grades: but these practically do not affect the question, 
because (as Harnack says) there was not at first much writing 
of any sort, and by the Providence of God it is mainly the 
best which has been preserved to us. When the Church 
began to reflect and define, it merely gave conscious and 
deliberate expression to feelings which had been present in- 
articulately throughout. Of course there was a little oscilla- 
tion at first, as there could not but be in ascertaining the 
true sense of a body so widely scattered and so imperfectly 
organized for such a purpose; but the oscillation did not 
take long to subside, and the result once obtained remained 
undisturbed. 

The ‘ sudden change’ of which Harnack speaks, and which 
assumes in his eyes such magnified proportions, is merely the 
reflexion—I had almost said, mirage—cast by the fact that | 
the date at which it is supposed to take place is practically 
that at which the bulk of the evidence begins. It seems as if 
he could not shake himself free from the legal formula, De 
non existentibus et non apparentibus cadem est ratio. But that 
is not a maxim for history. The historian’s duty is to look 
hard at the facts as soon as they do appear. They will 
seldom refuse to reveal something of the process which has 
brought them to the point at which they are, and which 
connects them with other facts on the further side of the 
chasm. 


64 Notes to Lecture I. 


NOTE Ὁ. 


Debateable Points relating to the Alogt. 


I HAVE tried to hold the scales between Harnack and Zahn 
and to do justice to the elements of truth in the conceptions 
of both writers. 

(1) I think that Harnack is inclined slightly to exaggerate 
the importance of the party, though he does not see an 
allusion to it in the Muratorian Fragment. On this point 
I go rather with Zahn. The Alogi no doubt did make 
a certain stir in literary circles; but it was only a side eddy 
in the great movement of opinion. 

(2) 1 agree with Harnack in thinking that it is quite possible 
that the Alogi had a double front against Gnosticism as well 
as Montanism: we might add also against Chiliasm. They 
seem to have been just a few rationalizing Christians who 
cut away all that seemed to them mystical or extravagant. It 
was inevitable that this tendency should go further; and 
therefore I go with Harnack in accepting the statement of 
Epiphanius that Theodotus of Byzantium sprang out of this 
circle (Haer. liv. 1: ἀπόσπασμα ὑπάρχων ἐκ τῆς προειρημένης 
ἀλόγου αἱρέσεως). 

(3) At the same time I cannot assent to Harnack’s con- 
clusion that the attitude of the Alogi is ‘sehr verhangnissvoll ’ 
for the Fourth Gospel. It is worth just so much as the 
critical grounds by which it is supported are worth, and no 
more. It is clear that this handful of primitive rationalists 
had nothing to trust to but their own arguments. They were 
not in possession of any real historical tradition adverse to 
the Johannean authorship of the Gospel. Their attribution 
of it to Cerinthus was a random guess, thrown out in the 
heat of personal dislike: it goes so far to confirm the 
Catholic tradition that it agrees with it both as to time and 
place. 


Note D. 65 


The views of Zahn respecting the Alogi will be found in 
Gesch. da. Ki. 223-227, 237-262; 1i.967-973,1021 f. Those of 
Harnack are sharply expressed in VV. 7. wm 200, pp. 58-70; 
compare Dogmengesch. i. 307, and index. 


NOdE 9; 


The use of the New Testament by Clement 
of Alexandria. 


As Clement of Alexandria is the writer to whom appeal is 
usually made by those who maintain the unequal authority 
of different parts of the New Testament, and of the New 
Testament as a whole compared with the Old, it may be 
worth while to test his evidence on the following points: 
(1) the equality of the two Testaments; (2) the authority of 
the Acts; (3) the authority of the Epistles. 

(a) eis true, as stated inthe text, that there is sonie 
ambiguity in the juxtaposition of 7 παλαιά and ἡ καινὴ (νέα) 
διαθήκη : it need not necessarily mean the writings of the two 
Dispensations. But with Clement of Alexandria this sense 
seems to lie near at hand. The double phrase seems to 
mean the body of laws or teaching belonging to the two 
Dispensations, but usually with the further implication that 
this body of laws and teaching is accessible in written docu- 
ments. Sometimes the stress may be on the dispensation in 
the abstract, sometimes on its written expression. 

The following seem to be fairly clear cases: Strom. i. 5. 
ὃ 28, πάντων μὲν γὰρ αἴτιος τῶν καλῶν ὁ Θεός, ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν κατὰ 
προηγούμενον ὡς τῆς τε διαθήκης τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ τῆς νέας, τῶν 
δὲ κατ᾽ ἐπακολούθημα ὡς τῆς φιλοσοφίας. Here the ‘divine 
library’ of the Old and New Testaments is opposed to the 
philosophical library as an instrument of education. 

In Strom. 111. 11. ὃ 71 the tenth commandment is ratified 
in Matt. v. 27 κατὰ τὴν νέαν διαθήκην. 

In like manner we have in S¢rom. iii. 18. § 108, written 

F 


66 Notes to Lecture 7, 


enactments of the New Testament (ἡ διαθ, ἡ και") opposed to 
written enactments of the Law. 

Similarly in Strom. v. 1. ὃ 3 we have mention of ai ἐντολαὶ 
ai τε κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν al τε κατὰ τὴν νέαν διαθήκην. And in 
Strom. v. 13. ὃ 85 precepts of the New Testament are placed 
side by side with those of the Old. 

Does this juxtaposition imply equality? Yes, because in 
several places Clement insists upon the common origin of 
both dispensations. Thus S¢rom. ii. 6. δὲ 28, 29, εἷς ἀμφοῖν 
ταῖν διαθήκαιν δείκνυται ὁ Θεός... ἐπειδὴ δύο αὗται ὀνόματι Kat 
χρόνῳ καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν καὶ προκοπὴν οἰκονομικῶς δεδομέναι δυνάμει μία 
οὖσαι, ἣ μὲν παλαιά, 1) δὲ καινή, διὰ υἱοῦ παρ᾽ ἑνὸς Θεοῦ χορηγοῦνται 
-.. τὴν play τὴν ἐκ προφητείας εἰς εὐαγγέλιον τετελειωμένην δι᾿ 
ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ κυρίου διδάσκων σωτηρίαν. Compare especially 
Strom. vi. 13. § 106, μία μὲν γὰρ τῷ ὄντι διαθήκη ἣ σωτήριος ἀπὸ 
καταβολῆς κόσμου εἰς ἡμᾶς διήκουσα κατὰ διαφόρους γενεάς τε καὶ 
χρόνους διάφορος εἶναι τὴν δόσιν ὑποληφθεῖσα : and 2014. 15.$ 125, 
κανὼν δὲ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἡ συνωδία καὶ ἣ συμφωνία νόμου τε καὶ 
προφητῶν τῇ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου παρουσίαν παραδιδομένῃ διαθήκῃ. 

If there is any superiority it is on the side of the New 
Testament and not of the Old. Thus in the extract from 
Strom. ii. 6. § 29 it is implied that the Law was ‘ perfected’ 
in the Gospel; an idea which is further developed in iv. 21. 
§ 130, ἀλλὰ νομικοῦ μὲν τελείωσις γνωστικὴ εὐαγγελίου πρόσληψις 

. ἐν εὐαγγελίῳ δὲ ἤδη προκόπτει ὁ γνωστικὸς οὐ βαθμῷ χρησά- 
μενος τῷ νόμῳ μόνον, συνιεὶς δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ νοήσας ὡς παρέδωκε τοῖς 
ἀποστόλοις ὁ τὰς διαθήκας δεδωκὼς κύριος. Compare ν. 6. ᾧ 38, 
ἄλλως τε ἐχρῆν τῇ κεφαλῇ τῇ κυριακῇ νόμον μὲν καὶ προφήτας 
ὑποκεῖσθαι κιτιλ. Stress is laid upon the fact that while both 
Testaments proceed from the same Lord, in the Gospels He 
spoke ‘in His own person’ (αὐτοπροσώπως Strom. iii. 11. § 71). 

(2) The fact that Clement insists so strongly as he does 
on the identical origin of the two Testaments is fatal to 

| Harnack’s contention that any part of the New Testament 
is inferior to the Old. With him the book of the Acts goes 
along with the Epistles. Both alike give expression to that 
revelation of which Christ Himself was the author through | 


Note D. 67 


the Apostles. The Old Testament and the New make up 
one single harmony in which the Apostles play a prominent 
part; λάβοις δ᾽ ἂν καὶ ἄλλως μουσικὴν συμφωνίαν τὴν ἐκκλη- 
σιαστικὴν νόμου καὶ προφητῶν ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀποστόλων σὺν καὶ τῷ 
εὐαγγελίῳ (Strom. vi. 11. § 88). 

The Acts are as a rule appealed to for plain historical facts, 
and their authority is as absolutely unquestioned as that of 
any of the other Historical Books. The book is expressly 
ascribed to St. Luke (Strom. v. 13. § 82). But in one place 
it is clearly placed on the same footing with the Epistles; 
and from the way in which it is quoted in this passage the 
reader may conclude what kind of estimate Clement formed 
of it: ὃ yap ἀπόστολος “πάντα᾽ φησὶ “τὰ ἄλλα ὠνεῖσθε ἐκ pa- 
κέλλου μηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες, καθ᾽ ὑπεξαίρεσιν τῶν δηλουμένων κατὰ 
τὴν ἐπιστολὴν τὴν καθολικὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων ἁπάντων, “σὺν τῇ 
εὐδοκίᾳ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος τῇ γεγραμμένῃ μὲν ἐν ταῖς ἸΠράξεσι 
τῶν ἀποστόλων, διακομισθείσῃ δὲ εἰς τοὺς πιστοὺς δι᾿ αὐτοῦ δια- 
κονοῦντος τοῦ Παύλου. ἐμήνυσαν γὰρ “ ἐπάναγκες ἀπέχεσθαι δεῖν 
εἰδωλοθύτων᾽᾽ κιτιλ. (Strom. ἵν. 15. § 97). 

(3) Both the Acts and Epistles are quoted with the ordinary 
formulae for the citation of Scripture (γέγραπται, 7 γραφὴ). 
Christ as the Divine Pacdagogus or Tutor speaks through 
different organs, at one time through Moses, at another 
through the Apostles (Paedag. iii. 12. § 94). Accordingly , 
Clement uses the highest language of reverence of the| 
Apostles. They are more many-sided in their gifts than 
the Prophets: ἀλλ᾽ ἕκαστος ἴδιον ἔχει χάρισμα ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, ὁ μὲν 
οὕτως, ὃ δὲ οὕτως, οἱ ἀπόστολοι δὲ ἐν πᾶσι πεπληρώμενοι (Strom. 
iv. 21. ὃ 132). St.Paul is ὁ ἅγιος ἀπόστολος τοῦ κυρίου (Protrept. 
8. § 81); ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος (Strom. iv. 16. ὃ 101; 21. ὃ 132); 
ὁ μακάριος ἀπόστολος (Protrept. 9. ὃ 83; Paedag. ii. το. § 98; 
Strom. i. 10. § 49) or 6 μακάριος Παῦλος (Paedag. i. 5. ὃ 19; 6. 
§ 33). In like manner St. Peter is ὁ μακάριος Πέτρος (Paedag. 
ii, 12. § 127); ὁ θαυμάσιος Πέτρος (Strom, iit. 11. ὃ 75); in both 
cases with quotations from his Epistle. St. James, St. Peter, 
St. John and St. Paul, with the other Apostles, are described 
as possessed of the true γνῶσις (Strom. vi. 8. § 68). 

KF 2 


68 Notes to Lecture I. 


We seldom read many pages of Clement without coming 
across quotations from the Epistles, often in thick clusters, 
and with such formulae as φησὶν 6 ἀπόστολος, 6 ἀπόστολος λέγει, 
| παραγγέλλει, βοᾷ, ἀξιοῖ «7... There is really no difference 
whatever in the way in which the Epistles are appealed to 
and that in which appeal is made to other parts of the Bible. 
In a number of places they are expressly equated with other 
books. Thus with the Gospel and the Prophets, Szrom. v. 
5. ὃ 31, δύο ὁδοὺς ὑποτιθεμένου τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Kal τῶν ἀποστόλων 
ὁμοίως τοῖς προφήταις ἅπασι (cf. Strom. vi. 11. § 88, quoted 
above); with the Prophets, προφήτας yap ἅμα καὶ δικαίους εἶναι 
τοὺς ἀποστόλους λέγοντες εὖ ἂν εἴποιμεν ‘ ἑνὸς Kal τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐνερ- 
γοῦντος᾽ διὰ πάντων ἁγίου πνεύματος (Strom. v. 6. ὃ 38); with 
the Gospels, τὸν Χριστὸν σοφίαν φαμέν... ὡς αὐτὸς κατὰ τὴν 
παρουσίαν τοὺς ἁγίους ἐδίδαξεν ἀποστόλους (Strom. vi. 7. § 61). 

Harnack makes two strange statements respecting Clement, 
one in the text and the other ina note of his Dogmengeschichte 
(i. 321 ed. 2), ‘bereits die paulinischen Briefe sind ihm nicht 
in derselben Weise Instanz wie die Evv., obschon er sie 
gelegentlich als γραφαί bezeichnet’; and, ‘sehr interessant ist 
auch, dass Clemens den parabolischen Charakter der ἢ. 
Schriften fast nirgendwo an der Brieflitteratur darthut, son- 
dern an dem A. T. und dem Ev., wie er auch Stellen aus 
anderen Schriften fast niemals allegorisirt hat.’ 

We have seen in what sense Clement does assign a certain 
superiority to the Gospels, as any of us moderns might do, 
because the Lord there speaks in person. But he quotes, 
and not only quotes but expounds, the Epistles with all the 
full authority of Scripture, not once or twice but hundreds of 
times. And he in principle evidently fecls himself just as 
free to allegorize the Epistles as any other part either of the 
New Testament or of the Old. 

If we are to take Harnack’s words quite literally, it is true 
that the allegorizing of the Epistles does not occur frequently ; 
for the simple reason that the Epistles lend themselves more 
naturally to direct application, both on points of doctrine and 
of practice, than to allegorizing. But there are instances 


Note D. 69 


enough to show that Clement had not the slightest hesita- 
tion to apply them allegorically in principle. Clear examples 
may be seen in Paedag. i. 6. δὲ 33-47 (a long and very 
characteristic passage on ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος and γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπό- 
Toa); Sot. i KT. 053; ii. 12. δὲ 80, 4% ἵν. τὸ. § 100: Vv, 4. 
§§ 26, 61, 62; 12. § 80. In several of these places he says 
expressly that St. Paul is allegorizing: ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος ... τὴν 
κατὰ νόμον ἀγωγὴν aivitretat—é λόγος ἀλληγορούμενος 
γάλα---ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ᾿ἐπότισα᾽ ῥῆμα τελείας μεταλήψεως σύμ- 
βολόν ἐστι---ὡὦ θαύματος μυστικοῦ- -εἰκότως ἀλληγορῶν 6 
Παῦλος καὶ γάλα αὐτὸν ὀνομάζων “ ἐπότισα᾽ ἐπιφέρει --- 
πάλιν τε αὖ περὶ τοῦ νόμου διαλεγόμενος ἀλληγορίᾳ χρώ- 
μενος “ἣ γὰρ ὕπανδρος γυνὴ φησὶ “τῷ ζῶντι ἀνδρὶ δέδεται νόμῳ᾽ 
καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς--- ἁγίου δὲ ὄντος τοῦ νόμου᾽ ἅγιος ὁ γάμος" τὸ 
μυστήριον τοίνυν τοῦτο εἰς τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ τὴν ἐκκλησία" 
ἄγει ὁ ἀπόστολος---τὴν γνωστικὴν οἰκοδομὴν ... αἰνισσόμενός 
φησιν. Not only does Clement interpret the Epistles alle- 
gorically, but he bases upon them the practice of allegorical 
interpretation (Szrom. v. 4. δ 25, 26). 

So entirely without foundation is Harnack’s statement, and 
so conclusive is the proof that Clement ascribed to the 
Epistles (he treats St. Peter in the same way as St. Paul) 
the highest property of a Sacred Book, that of being inter- 
preted as allegory. It is in vain to attempt to draw any 
real distinction between the use of the New Testament by 
Clement of Alexandria and the great writers who were his | 
contemporaries and successors. He is distinguished from 
them only (i) in the higher value which he assigns to the 
wisdom of the Greeks, drawn, as he maintained, from Hebrew 
sources ; and (ii) by the uncritical way in which he accepted 
as Apostolic whatever came to him with the name of an 
Apostle. 


LEGTURE =i; 


THE HiISTORIC-CANON, 
ESTIMATE’ OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE FIRST 
CENTURY ‘OF THE CHRISTIANVERA 


‘What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what is the profit of 
circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were entrusted 
with the oracles of God.’ —Rom. iii. 1, 2. 


We are engaged in the attempt to form a con- 
structive view of the growth of the Bible as an 
Inspired or Sacred Book; and as a preliminary to 
this, before we venture upon the more difficult 
problem of origins, we are seeking to map out in 
broad lines the conception which results when the 
process is more or less complete, or at least when it 
emerges from its passage as it were underground 
into the fuller light of history. In pursuance of this 
object we have already taken a section, so to speak, 
of the history of the New Testament at two of its 
stages. We have now to take, if we can succeed in 
doing so, a corresponding section of the Old Testa- 
ment. ‘This part of our subject is really, as has been 
said, the more critical of the two: because the con- 
-ception of a Canon, of an inspired volume, was first 
formed for the Old Testament, and only extended 


The Old Testament tn the First Century. γἱ 


from it to the New. The Books of the New Testa- 
ment acquired canonical value when they came to be 
placed on the same footing with those of the Old. It 
was not that any new attributes were ascribed to 
them, or that any new idea of Canonicity had to be 
constructed. The idea was already there, complete in 
all its parts. The only step required was that the 
Books of the New Testament—at first some, then 
all—should be brought under it. And they were so 


brought under it the moment that the literature of | 
the New Covenant came to be treated as on an | 


equality with that of the Elder Covenant, when the 


writings of the Apostles and their followers took | 
rank beside the Law and the Prophets and the 


Psalms. 

We approach then to-day this most important 
question : What was the estimate formed by the Jews 
and by the early Christians of the Old Testament ? 
How far had they our present idea of Canonicity ? 
What particular connotation did they attach to that 
idea ? 

In dealing with the New Testament we selected 
the two periods 200 and 400 a.p. In dealing with 
the Old Testament we cannot draw so definite a line. 
We shall do well to take not a year but a century. 
About the end of the first century after Christ a 
sort of formal decision seems to have been given 
by the Jewish doctors assembled at Jamnia on the 
Canonicity of certain books; and the same century 
saw three important groups of writings in all of which 
this idea is to a greater or less extent presupposed— 


12 Il, The Old Testament in the First Century. 


the works of Philo, the New Testament, and the 
works of Josephus’. From these three groups it is 
not difficult to understand how the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament were regarded in three typical sections 
of the Jewish people. 

It should be premised that in collecting data from 
the New Testament I reserve for the present the 
deeper teaching of our Lord and the Apostles, and 
rather aim at giving those particulars in which the 
writers share the beliefs of their countrymen. 


I. We may resolve the complex idea of Canonicity 
into the same sort of elements as those which we 
followed in the last lecture. In the first place we 
note that the special sacredness attaching to the Scrip- 
tures was expressed in their titles. It is characteristic 
of Philo that while he accumulates expressions which 
denote inspiration, he lays stress rather on the 
inspired person than on the inspired book. He uses 
the phrase ‘sacred scriptures’ (ἱεραὶ γραφαί), ‘sacred 
books’ (éepat βίβλοι), ‘the sacred word’ (ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος), 
‘oracle’ (Adyiov, χρησμοί) 2, &c.; but far more often he 


1 It may be convenient to remember that the works of Philo were 
probably nearly all composed before his embassy to Rome in 
40 A.D.; that the earliest extant New Testament writing (1 Thess.) 
dates from about 52 a.p., and the Anfguities and Cont. Apion. of 
Josephus (which alone are important for our purpose) about or soon 
after 93-94 A.D. 

* A number of these expressions are collected by Eichhorn, 
Einlettung in ἃ. A, 7.1. 129, It is important to note that a Historical 
Book, 1 Sam. i. 11, is quoted as 6 ἱερὸς λόγος (De Lbriet. 36, Mangey, 
/ 1.379; Gf De Conf. Ling. 28, Mang. i. 427, τῶν ἐν βασιλικαῖς βίβλοις 
ἱεροφαντηθέντων, of the Book of Ezra). 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 13 


refers directly to the writer, and that frequently with 
some qualifying phrase which brings out the fact that 
his words are inspired, that he is speaking in a rapt or 
ecstatic condition as the mouthpiece of God. 

Philo rarely uses the particular name with which 
we are so familiar in the New Testament, ‘scripture, 
‘the scriptures, ‘holy scriptures’ {ἡ γραφή, often in 
the sense of a particular passage of Scripture, aé 
γραφαί, ἅγιαι ypadai'), Besides these we have in the 
New Testament ἱερὰ γράμματα 5", ‘sacred writings, and 
twice the word Aéya 3, ‘ oracles of God,’ and ‘ living 
oracles’ (i.e. almost ‘life-giving,’ animated by the 
Spirit). In Josephus we get ‘sacred books’ (éepai 
βίβλοι 4, ἱερὰ βιβλία 5), ‘sacred writings’ (ἱερὰ γράμματα), 
‘books of sacred scriptures’ (ἱερῶν γραφῶν βίβλοι Ἰ). 
Similar designations are found in the Talmud *. 

It is common to all these titles that they indicate a 
Divine origin. And this is a point which may be illus- 
trated with overwhelming abundance. There can be 
no doubt that it was a rooted idea among the Jews 
of the first century, both Hellenistic and Palestinian, 

* Rom. 1. 3. 22 Yam. 11: ἘΣ: 

δ Rom. iii. 2; Acts vii. 38. 

* Ani, prooemads 3.11} P6452 Ay 5.12); ive 8.1483 ik. 2025 Kg Oey 
B, Joi. Be = iis 8.3 eke. 

Oils. G8. Ὁ x LO. 4.5. B.f, VWs δ. AS CoApe as Op 

τς, Ap. il. 4. The references to Josephus are given by Gerlach, 
Die Werssagungen d. A. T. in d. Schrift. d. Flav. Joseph., Berlin, 1863. 
The views both of Philo and Josephus are also fully discussed in 
a recent monograph by M. Dienstfertig, Die Prophetologie in d. 


Religionsphilosophie d. ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhunderts, Breslau, 
1892. 


* They are collected by Ryle, Canon, p. 292. 


74 IL. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


that the Scriptures of the Old Testament came frony 
God. Philo expresses this in the most uncompromis- 
ing manner. In quoting a verse from Jeremiah he 
says in so many words that it was uttered by ‘the 
Father of All through the mouth of the prophet1.’ 
In Philo’s conception of it the recipient of inspiration 
is passive, and the Divine Spirit speaks through him. 
‘For a prophet, he says, ‘gives forth nothing at all of 
his own but acts as interpreter at the prompting of 
another in all his utterances, and as long as he is 
under inspiration he is in ignorance, his reason de- 
parting from its place and yielding up the citadel. 
of his soul, when the Divine Spirit enters into it and 
dwells in it and strikes at the mechanism of his voice: 
sounding through it to the clear declaration of that 
which He prophesieth *.’ The saying in Gen. xv. 12, 
that ‘about the setting of the sun a trance came’ upon 
Abraham, is typical of this process. The sun is the 
light of human reason, which sets and gives place to. 
the Spirit of God. ‘So long then as our mind shines. 
and stirs about us, pouring as it were noontide bright- 
ness into every corner of the soul, we are masters of 
ourselves and are not possessed; but when it draws to 
its setting, then it is natural that the trance of inspira- 
tion should fall upon us, seizing upon us with a sort 
of frenzy. For when the divine light begins to shine, 
the human sets; and when it sets below the horizon, 
the other appears above it and rises. This is what 
constantly happens to the prophet. The mind in us. 


1 De Profug. 36 (Mangey, i. 575). 
2 De Special. Legg. iv. 8 (Mangey, ii. 343). 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 15 


is expelled at the arrival of the Divine Spirit and 
returns again to its home at His removal. For it 
may not be that mortal dwell with immortal. So the 
setting of the reason and the darkness that gathers 
round it generates an ecstasy and heaven-caused mad- 
ness! In another well-known passage an elaborate 
distinction is drawn between the different modes of 
inspiration. The highest is that in which the 
prophet simply acts as the ‘interpreter’ of God and 
in which there is the most complete identification of 
human and divine. Then comes the method of 
question and answer, in which the one alternates 
with the other. And lastly there are the cases in 
which the prophet speaks in his own person, though 
still as it seems possessed by the Divine Spirit 3, 

We may observe in regard to Philo that his language 
bears traces of the syncretism of his whole system. 
The words of which he is fondest, χρησμός, λόγιον, μανία, 
ἱεροφάντης, ἱεροφαντεῖν, θεοφόρητος, ἐπιθειάζω, ἐνθουσιᾶν, are 
characteristic of Greek ‘ mantic,’ and especially of the 
application of it to philosophy by Plato. 

It is through this philosophical use that the terms 
in question come to him, as he has no respect 
for the ordinary methods of soothsaying*. In like 
manner it is from Neopythagoreanism that Philo gets 
the idea of the mystical vision of God‘. As com- 


5 Quis rer. div. her. 83 (Mangey, i. 511). 


Vit. Mos. iii. 23 (Mangey, ii. 163). 

De Monarch. i. g (Mang. ii. 221). 

De Migr. Abr. 8, 34, 35 (Mang. i. 442, 466); De Somm. i. 19, 
26, 32 (i. 638, 645, 649); ii. 38 (i. 692), &c. 


2 
8 


4 


76 7]. The Old Testament tn the First Century. 


pared with Josephus he lays greater stress on the 
ecstatic state in the recipient of revelation; the soul 
is wholly possessed and loses self-consciousness. It 
is also characteristic of Philo to introduce the Logos 
as the medium of revelation’. Josephus is simpler, 
and keeps closer to the Biblical accounts; he writes 
as a historian, and not as a speculative philosopher 
or theologian; but the underlying conception in both 
writers can hardly be said to differ. 

We shall have more to say about the range of 
Philo’s doctrine of inspiration presently. 

The Divine origin of the prophetic word comes out 
especially in the New Testament in the formula ‘that 
which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet’ 
(ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου) ἡ. The prophet is only 
the channel for the Divine utterance. There is a 
certain ambiguity in the places in which λέγει, εἶπεν, 
φησίν, are used without any subject expressed. It 
may be God Himself who is speaking; or it may be 
the Scripture personified; or it may be the writer of 
the book that is being quoted. But there are not a 
few places in which this ambiguity is removed by the 
insertion (expressed or clearly implied) of ὁ Θεός ὃ. 


1 Dienstfertig, uf sup. p. 153 Siegfried, PAzlo, p. 228. I may 
remark that Dienstfertig seems to me to press the difference between 
Philo and Josephus beyond what it will really bear. 

2 So Matt. i. 22; ii, ag (cf ii. 8; iil. 3); Acts iv. 255 xxvii. 25 
(cp. ii. 16). 

8 So Matt. xv. 4; Acts iii. 25; vii. 2, 3, 6, 73 xiii. 47 (cp. 22); 
2 Cor. vi. 16, 17, 18; Heb. 3. ες Ὁ, ἢ, 8.15. δ 75 VG, OS Vinee 
14; Vii. 21 ; viii, 8; x. 5 (here the Messiah is regarded as speaking), 30 ; 
xii. 26; James ii. 11. 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 11 


There are other passages where the words of Scrip- 
ture are directly referred to the Holy Spirit? 

Josephus uses a number of expressions which imply 
Divine inspiration. He speaks of ‘the Deity (τὸ θεζον) 
being present with’ a writer; of ‘holding converse 
with God’; of ‘being possessed or inspired by God’; 
of ‘being filled with Deity’; of ‘being in a state of 
Divine inspiration’; of ‘the Spirit of God taking hold 
of’ the prophet ; of ‘the Divine gift passing over’ from 
one person to another. Josephus is almost as explicit 
as Philo in regard to the manner of inspiration. He 
describes Balaam as prophesying ‘not as master of 
himself but moved to say what he did by the Divine 
Spirit. And he makes him say to Balak, ‘ Thinkest 
thou that it is in our power to speak or be silent 
about such things when the Spirit of God takes 
possession of us? For He causes us to utter words 
such as He wills and speeches without our know- 
ledge... 1 prayed that I might not disappoint thy 
desire. But God is stronger than my resolve to serve 
thee. For those who fancy (ὑπολαμβάνοντες, Niese) that 
of themselves they can foretell the fortunes of men 
are all too weak to help saying what God suggests to 
them or to resist His Will; for when He has entered 
into us nothing that is in us is any longer our own®,’ 

13 Matt. xxii; 25 (ΞΞ Warkexn-2396)> Acts xxviii. e55 Heb. xi. 

? Ant.iv.6.5. Dienstfertig (wf sup. p. 25), after Lewinski, Bee/rage 
5. Kenninis d. reitgionsphilos. Anschauungen d. lav. Joseph., p. 35, 
denies that this description applies to the prophet, because Balaam 
is called μάντις ἄριστος and not προφήτης ; but this seems to me to be 


pressing the particular word used too far. There is the same want 
of strict consistency in Josephus as in the Bible. 


18. 11]. Lhe Old Testament tn the First Century. 


It is clear that in this Josephus is only paraphrasing 
and expanding the Biblical account?, But the same 
idea runs through his whole conception of prophecy. 
At the head of all the prophets is Moses, who had 
none like him, ‘so that in whatever he said one might 
imagine that one heard God Himself speaking*. Even 
historical narratives, such as those at the beginning of 
the Pentateuch (τὰ ἀνωτάτω καὶ madatérara), which were 
not written down by contemporary prophets, were 
obtained by direct inspiration from God (κατὰ τὴν 
ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ), The predictions of the 
prophets were absolute truth to which the subsequent 
history of the nation would be found to correspond +, 
The Jewish doctors had precisely the same view as 
to the Divine origin of the Scriptures. They ex- 
pressed it by a decision at which we are told that the 
schools of Hillel and Shammai arrived in concert 
during the decade before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
that the Sacred Books ‘defile the hands,’ i. e. that any 
one touching them incurred ceremonial uncleanness 
and had to undergo the rites of purification ; the object 
being to prevent profane or irreverent use of the rolls 
on which they were written. It was equally forbidden 
to quote verses of Scripture lightly or profanely. And 
the superstitious employment of sentences from the 


1 The same sort of comment is found in Philo, V4. Jos. i. 49 
(Mang. ii. 124). The angel which met Balaam on the way will 
supply the words which he is to speak. The prophet is wholly 
passive, a mere channel through which they pass. 

2 Ant. iv. 8. 49. 

% Contra Apion. i. 8. 

© AN, Be ὩΣ 2 (Cp. ΡΤ ὙΠ). 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 79 


Bible as charms and amulets pointss.to a similar 
estimate of them}, 

It followed from all this, and indeed it is a fact 
that needs no proof, that by the first century of our 
era the normative value of the Old Testament was 
thoroughly established. That is the ground of the 
appeals ‘it is said,’ ‘it is written, which are so frequent 
in the New Testament and the Talmud*. Josephus 
says that the Jews from their very birth regard their 
Scriptures as the ‘decrees of God’ (Θεοῦ δόγματα), 
which they strictly observe, and for which if need be 
they are ready to die*, But the most decisive proof 
of the authoritative character which the Jewish writers 
of this century attached to the Old Testament is to 
be seen in the use of it for purposes of allegory. 
The use of allegory implies a sacred text. Philo 
regards the scriptural text as sacred. He tells a 
story of one who was punished with an ignominious 
death for scoffing at what might seem to be trivial 
details in Scripture*, He himself held fast to the 
literal meaning of the text, though allowing that the 
literal sense was often only given out of condescension 
to human weakness*®. But behind this literal sense 
he thinks himself justified in looking for another 
deeper sense, which with him usually took the form 

* Weber, Alisynagogale Theologie, p. 82; also inf. p. 111. 

* The use of these expressions in the New Testament is elaborately 
analysed by MceCalman Turpie, Zhe New Testament View of the Old, 
London, 1872. For the Talmud see especially Surenhusius, Βίβλος 
Καταλλαγῆς, Amsterdam, 1713. 


* Contra Apion. i. 8. * De Mutat. Nom. 8. 
® De Somn. i. 40. 


80° 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


of philosophical abstractions. These of course are 
derived from his study of the Greeks. But the 
results are one thing, the method is another. And 
although Philo had a fully developed allegorical 
method ready to his hand, it would be a mistake 
to regard this as wholly Greek. He used the Stoic 
rules, but he was also very largely influenced by 
that Haggadic exegesis which had its origin in 
Palestine’. Of the same exegesis we have traces 
in the New Testament, as (¢¢.) where St. Paul 
argues from the use of the singular ‘seed’ instead 
of the plural ‘seeds.’ It is a moot point how far 
the parallels which are found in the New Testa- 
ment to the teaching of Philo are due to like in- 
fluences acting upon both, and how far to the direct 
use of his writings. But the rarefied intellectualism 
by which they are characterized is so alien from the 
whole spirit of the New Testament, that if the former 
hypothesis is not to be adopted entirely, the excep- 
tions are far more probably indirect than direct. It 
is hard to think that any of the Apostles had read 
Philo; it is more possible that words and phrases 
or even particular applications of the Old Testament 
due to Philo may have reached them through such 
agencies as that of Apollos. 

The Rabbinical exegesis is older than both Philo 
and the New Testament. Scanty as are the materials 
for the century before our era, the beginnings of it 


1 Siecfried, Philo v. Alexandria, p. 165. Philo’s acquaintance 
with the Palestinian Halachah is also amply proved by Ritter, PAz/o 
τι. die Halacha, Leipzig, 1879. 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 81: 


can be traced far back within its limits. Hillel was 
made president of the Sanhedrin by Herod about 
30 B.c.’ He belonged by birth to the Dispersion 
in Babylonia; but according to a well-authenticated 
tradition, he was moved to leave his home and 
journey to Palestine in order to ascertain if his in- 
terpretation of certain passages in the Law agreed 
with that which obtained there. On his arrival he 
found the study of the Scriptures actively prosecuted 
by Shemaiah and Abtalion; and he attached himself 
tojjthemas)a pupil: Elis own great sival at. ἃ 
later date was Shammai; but the points which they 
debated seem to us so small and so much matter of 
detail as to show that on all the larger and more 
fundamental questions which precede the application 
of exegesis there was substantial agreement between 
them. Hillel put forth seven rules for interpretation, 
which acquired great celebrity?; but these rules con- 
tained little that was new in principle or that did more 
than formulate the practice existing at the time*. But 
all this proves not only that the authority of Scrip- 
ture was absolute, but that it was the subject of an 
elaborate exegetical tradition quite by the middle of 


1 So Edersheim, Zzfe and Times, &c., i. 129; Hamburger (2eal- 
Encycl. f. Bibel u. Talmud, s.v.) makes Hillel’s residence in Palestine 
extend from B.c. 70 to a.p. 10; but the chronology of his life seems 
somewhat vague and untrustworthy. Bacher, Die Agada der Tan- 
naiten, 1. 5. 

2 These rules are given by Schiirer, Meutest. Zetigesch. ii. 275; 
they were afterwards expanded to thirteen by Ishmael ben Elisha at 
the end of the first century a. Ὁ. (Bacher, wf sup., i. 240 ff.). 

$ Strack in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopadie, vi. 115. 

G 


| 


82 LI. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


the first century B.c., or at least a century before 
St. Paul wrote his first extant Epistle. 

Nor must it be supposed that this tradition related 
only to the Law. It can be abundantly illustrated 
for the other books from the time of Hillel onwards. 
And, what might be thought somewhat strange, the 
disputed books seem to be used quite as freely as 
the rest. The sayings of Hillel which have been pre- 
served are not numerous, but in one of them he 
appeals to, and in another he expounds, passages of 
Ecclesiastes’. Johanan ben Zakkai, who saw the 
destruction of the Temple and founded the School 
at Jamnia, interprets the same book allegorically*. 
It is quoted as authoritative by his somewhat younger 
contemporary, Joshua ben Hananiah, who interprets 
it differently from his opponent Eliezer ben Hyrka- 
nos *, Ishmael ben Elisha seems to have applied his 
rules to it*. A still longer list may be made for the 
Song of Songs, both as quoted authoritatively and 
interpreted allegorically, before the end of the first 
century ὃ. And there are several instances of a like 
use ‘Of ‘Esther % 

One common feature which runs through all the 
first century writers is their uncompromising view 
of Prophecy. Between prophecy and its fulfilment 
there is a necessary connexion. The correspondence 
between them is exact. Together they form part of 


» Bacher, wf sup., i. 8, 10. 5. Tbid. i. 39 (cf. 45). 

5. Ibid. i. 139, 156. * Ibid. i. 249 (cf. 258, 263). 
* Ibid. i. 46, 51, 57, 99, 115, 156, 201, 263, 318. 
© bid. i. 95, 187, 201, 318. 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 83 


that predetermined order in which the one being given 
the other inevitably follows. The classical expres- 
sion for this is the New Testament phrase, especially 
characteristic of St. Matthew but found also twice 
in St. John, ‘{[such and such a thing came to pass, 
or is come to pass], in order that the word spoken 
by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled?’ 
(ἵνα... πληρωθῇ, ὅπως πληρωθῇ). As if the prophecy 
cried out for its fulfilment and demanded it at the 
hand; of Godi%; In: one’ place: in. the Epistle*to; the 
Galatians (iii. 8) the Scripture itself is regarded as 
endowed with foresight, so that the promise made 
to Abraham is a ‘Gospel’ by anticipation (προϊδοῦσα 
ἡ γραφὴ... mpoevnyyedioaro)*. This is parallel to the 
saying in St. John, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced 
to see My day, and he saw it and was glad’ (John 
viii. 56). The simple indication of the fulfilment of 
prophecy is of course extremely common. 

epiiait1 22,1 024 ὙΠ £7, Xi. 35, ΧΕΙ 4, XXVil, 95) JOON xi, 
38, xix. 36. Compare Surenhusius, p. 2 ff. 

* A notable passage for the correspondence between prophecy and 
its fulfilment as seen by Christian eyes is an extract from the 
Predicatio Petri quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6. 15. 
δ᾽ 128: ἡμεῖς δὲ ἀναπτύξαντες τὰς βίβλους as εἴχομεν τῶν προφητῶν, ἃ μὲν 
διὰ παραβολῶν, ἃ δὲ δι᾿ αἰνιγμάτων, ἃ δὲ αὐθεντικῶς καὶ αὐτολεξεὶ τὸν Χριστὸν 
Ἰησοῦν ὀνομαζόντων, εὕρομεν καὶ τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν θάνατον καὶ τὸν 
σταυρὸν καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς κολάσεις πάσας ὅσας ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ οἱ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, καὶ 
τὴν ἔγερσιν καὶ τὴν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάληψιν πρὸ τοῦ “Ἱεροσόλυμα κτισθῆναι, 
καθὼς ἐγέγραπτο. ταῖτα πάντα ἃ ἔδει αὐτὸν παθεῖν καὶ per αὐτὸν ἃ ἔσται. 
For other passages expressing the early Christian views of the 
inspiration of the Old Testament, see especially Westcott, Za/roduction 
70 the Study of the Gospels, Appendix B. 

5. It is clearly this which suggested the passages in Irenaeus and 
Tertullian quoted in the last lecture, p. 34 f. Cf Surenhus. p. 6. 

G2 


84 LI. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


The nature of Vhilo’s system and the object of 
his writings do not so much lead him to call atten- 
tion to the literal fulfilment of prophecy, but his 
words doubtless imply such fulfilment. He uses, 
as we have seen, the strongest language in regard 
to inspiration. He makes Jeremiah speak ‘in the 
person of God Himself!’ (ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ coi). 
And he paints the Messianic time in terms which 
show that he is drawing upon the prophetic descrip- 
tignsi(¢.g- an Isa. svi. 33\ Dan. wn: 13, 14) 

The purpose of Josephus is more historical, and 
accordingly we find him often pointing out the ful- 
filment of prophecy. It is the special business of 
the prophet to foretell the future*. The prophets 
of Israel discharged this duty, and their predictions 
were verified by the event. Thus Nahum foretold 
the destruction of Nineveh, which came to pass after 
a hundred and fifteen years*. Hezekiah learnt all 
that was about to happen accurately from Isaiah δ, 
So marvellously true were the prophecies of Isaiah 
and so confident was he that he had said nothing 
false that he wrote them all down in a book in 
order that posterity might compare them with the 
event. Nor did he stand alone in this, but twelve 
other prophets did the same. And everything bad 
or good that happened to the Jews was all in ac- 
cordance with their prophecies®. Jeremiah foretold 


? De Cherub. 14 (Mang. i. 148). 
® Fdersheim in Dict. Chr. Biog. iv. 385. 
3. See the passages collected by Gerlach, Werssagungen, &c., p. 26. 
4 Ant. ix, 11. 3. 5 Tbtd. 23) 3: 6 Tbid. X. 2. ὩΣ 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 88 


alike the Babylonian captivity and the catastrophe 
under Titus!'. There is a lengthy panegyric upon 
Daniel, whose books show that he held converse 
with God, and who had this distinction among his 
fellow-prophets, that whereas they foretold what 
would happen in the future, he gave the exact time 
when they would happen; and whereas they foretold 
evil and so drew upon themselves the hatred of 
kings and people, he was a prophet of good things, 
and with his cheering predictions not only won cre- 
dence by their accomplishment, but was held by the 
people to be truly divine. His writings stand to 
this day as proof of ‘the undeviating accuracy of his 
prophecy?’ (τὸ τῆς προφητείας αὐτοῦ ἀκριβὲς καὶ ἀπαράλ- 
λακτον). 

Some of the reasoning and expressions used by 
these writers are noticeable as signifying in different 
ways the minute perfection of the Scriptures. Philo’s , 
whole method of exegesis involves a conception of 
inspiration which is nothing short of verbal, He lays 
down broadly that there is ‘nothing superfluous’ (περιτ- 
τὸν ὄνομα οὐδὲν τίθησιν) in the Law*. Little words that 
are seemingly unnecessary, and indeed just because they 
seem unnecessary, ail have their deeper meaning ; the 
repetition of the name when God calls to Abraham 
(Gen. xxii. 11), such Hebraisms as ‘let him die the 
death,’ ‘ blessing I will bless.’ A profound philosophy 
lies hid in such phrases as ‘ brought him out’ (ἐξήγαγεν 
αὐτὸν ἔξω) applied to Abraham. ‘The ἔξω denotes the 


WADE X be 1. BMGs πὶ Te ts 
5 De Prof. 10 (Mang. i. 554). 


86 77]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


outermost place of all, z.¢. freedom from the trammels 
of the body; ‘parted down the middle’ (μέσα διεῖλεν) of 
the victims of Abraham's sacrifice has reference to the 
two halves into which the λόγος τομεύς divides all 
things; when it is said ‘thou shalt not plant thyself a 
vineyard,’ ‘ thyself, just because it seems superfluous, 
contains a special warning against pride—it is God 
who plants and not man. The smallest and most 
subsidiary parts of speech, particles, adverbs, pre- 
positions, acquire on this method exaggerated im- 
portance and receive elaborately expanded meanings 1. 

What makes Philo’s treatment of the text which lay 
before him the more remarkable is that his interpre- 
tations are based not upon the Hebrew original but 
upon the Septuagint version. He lays down that 
while most men know little of the true nature of 
things and therefore give them faulty and defective 
names, Moses made use of words which are the most 
exact and expressive possible?. Philo is constantly 
enlarging upon this perfection of language, and de- 
ducing the most elaborate inferences from it: but the 
strange thing is that he bases these inferences on the 
properties of the Greek and not of the Hebrew. The 
fact was that he regarded the Greek translation as 
itself a product of divine inspiration as much as the 
original. He is the first to add to the story of Aris- 
teas— which made the Seventy translators produce a 
harmonious text by comparing their versions together— 


1 Philo’s methods are abundantly illustrated in Siegfried, PAzlo v. 
Alexandria, pp. 168-196. 
* De Agricult. 1 (Mang. i. 300). 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 8] 


the further touch that this harmony was obtained, not 
by comparison of results, but by supernatural aid: 
the translators, according to him, were inspired pro- 
phets who ‘did not produce one one rendering and 
another another, but all the same words and expres- 
sions as though some invisible prompter were at the 
ear of each of them1.’ 

The Rabbis do not interpret the Old Testament 
quite in the same manner as Philo, but their inter- 
pretations are just as minute and verbal. They too 
seem to attach an equal importance to every word 
in a sentence, even the smallest particles. And their 
whole exegesis is based on the assumption that the 
text must be taken strictly as it stands. It would be 
wrong to say that there was no attempt to get at the 
spirit beneath the letter, but there can be no doubt 
that what we should think a narrow and unhappy 
literalism greatly preponderated. 

It is just here that the New Testament is so 
superior alike to Philo and to the Talmud. The 
New Testament does not indeed escape Rabbinical 
methods”, but even where these are most prominent 
they seem to affect the form far more than the sub- 
stance. And through the temporary and local form 
the writer constantly penetrates to the very heart of 
the Old Testament teaching *. I hope to return to 

1 Vit. Mos. ii. 7 (Mang. ii. 140). 

2 For an excellent discussion of three of the most conspicuous 
instances of this, see an article by Dr. Driver in the Lxposz/or for 
1889, i. 15 ff. 

3. Conspicuous examples would be St. Paul’s treatment of the 
subject of faith, and the call of the Gentiles. 


88 JI. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


this subject at a later stage in our inquiry; for the 
present it will be enough to note that, although in a 
broader and deeper sense than any which we have met 
with hitherto, there are yet a few expressions scattered 
over the New Testament which do seem to attribute 
to the Scriptures of the Older Covenant, not only 
authority in matters of faith and life, but a kind of 
ultimate and inviolable perfection. 

Such would be the great saying in St. Matthew's 
Gospel, ‘ Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth 
pass away, one jot or one tittle (an iota or a letter- 
tip) shall in no wise pass away from the Law till all 
things be accomplished’ (St. Matt. v. 18). And again 
(St. John x. 35), ‘The scripture cannot be broken’ 
(λυθῆναι, ‘undone, ‘treated as if it were invalid’), 
where we must note also even in passing the further 
ambiguity whether ‘the scripture’ means the whole 
body of Scripture collectively or whether it means the 
particular passage of Scripture: a distinction however 
which may seem more important than it is. For 
even if we take the narrower view and restrict the 
saying to the particular passage, it would hardly be 
applied to that unless it represented a general prin- 
ciple which might be applied to other passages as well. 
Something similar may be said of a like ambiguity in 
the famous passage which is the only one in which a 
direct equivalent for our word ‘inspired’ occurs in the 
Bible. Even if we do not say ‘Every scripture is 
inspired of God,’ but ‘Every scripture inspired of God 
is also profitable, for teaching, for reproof,’ ἃς, (2 Tim. 
ili, 16), we should be obliged to interpret the words 


Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 89 


by the current conception of what Scriptures were so 
inspired, and we should find that it included all, or 
very nearly all, those which form our present Old 
Testament. 

Lastly, when the Second Epistle which bears the 
name of St. Peter affirms that ‘no prophecy of Scrip- 
ture is of private interpretation, and adds that ‘no 
prophecy ever came by the will of man, but holy men 
spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost’ 
(2 Pet. i. 20, 21), the judgment in question certainly 
covers the prophetic writings, and perhaps others 
not strictly prophetic into which a prophetic element 
enters; but it would hardly go beyond these. 

The language of Josephus is more explicit. He 
expressly denies that there is any discord or discrepancy 
in the Hebrew Scriptures, and he claims for them 
in this an advantage over all other books’. He 
also appeals to it as proof of the attachment of the 
Jews to their Bible that in all the long lapse of time 
‘no one has ever dared to add or subtract or alter 
anything in it®’ And in the Preface to his Azteguz- 
ties the same writer (after contrasting the lawgiver of 
Israel with those of other nations who refer to the 
gods the sins of men, whereas he conceives of God as 
pure and unmixed goodness in which men must use 
all their efforts to share) goes on to assert that those 
who inquire into it will find that in His law ‘there is 


1 Contra Apion. i. 8: μήτε τινὸς ἐν τοῖς γραφομένοις ἐνούσης διαφωνίας . .. 
> , , PES ie οἷσι > UJ .Y ΄ 
οὐ μυριάδες βιβλίων εἰσὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἀσυμφώνων καὶ μαχομένων. 
5. [bid.: τοσούτου γὰρ αἰῶνος ἤδη παρῳχηκότος οὔτε προσξεῖναί τις οὐδὲν 


> ΄“ “ rc 5 
οὔτε ἀφελεῖν αὐτῶν οὔτε μεταθεῖναι τετόλμηκεν. 


9οο 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


nothing whatever that is unreasonable (ἄλογον) or un- 
becoming the majesty and goodness of God 1.’ 

We may conclude these quotations with a sort of 
chorus of the leading Rabbis of the end of the first 
and beginning of the second centuries in praise of 
the inexhaustible riches of the Law. ‘R. Elieser 
said: “If all the seas were ink, and all the reeds 
were pens, and heaven and earth were rolls, and all 
men were scribes, they would not suffice to write 
the Torah which I have taught (1 6. what I have 
taught out of the Torah) and have made it no 
smaller, as little as a man makes the sea poorer 
who dips the tip of his brush in it.” R. Joshua 
said: “If all the seas were ink, and all the reeds 
pens, and heaven and earth were cloth (tent-cloth 
which was*sometimes used for writing), they would 
not suffice to write the words of Torah which 
I have taught (z.e the knowledge which I have 
drawn from the Torah), and I have made it no 
poorer.” R. Akiba said: “I cannot tell how much 
my teachers have said, but they have made the 
Torah no poorer, neither have I myself; as little 
as a man makes the apple of Paradise poorer by 
smelling at it; he has the enjoyment thereof and 
the apple is no poorer; as little as one makes less 
the stream from which he fills his pitcher, or the 
lamp at which he lights his own®.”’ 

Δ Ant. prooem. 4. 

* Weber, Al/synagogale Theologie, p. 84 f. The particular kind of 
hyperbole which runs through this passage seems to have been fre- 


quently applied in other connexions: see examples in Bacher, Agada 
d, Tann. i. 28 n. 


Canon of the Old Testament. gt 


II. But now the question arises—and it is a 
question to which the answer is not quite so simple 
as those of which we have hitherto been treating— 
What are the Scriptures to which all this high in- 
spiration and authority are attributed? Was there 
a fixed and determinate number of books which 
possessed these properties to the exclusion of all 
others ? 

The Canonical Books of the Old Testament were 
of course by no means the only religious books which 
were in circulation among the Jews of Palestine and 
of the Dispersion in the first century. Besides them 
there were the books which are now classed together 
in our larger Bibles as the Apocrypha. And besides 
the books which are more commonly printed under 
this title, there were others, like the Psalms of Solo- 
mon, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees or 
Little Genesis, the Assumption of Moses, composed 
in part before the Christian era and in part before 
the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 Α.Ὁ., or composed soon 
after that event, like the Fourth Book of Ezra and 
the Apocalypse of Baruch. All these books—not 
to speak of others which were more probably of 
Christian origin—were more or less on the lines of 
corresponding works in the Canonical collection. To 
what extent were they separated from these? And 
if separated, on what principle was the separation 
made, and how was it maintained ? 

It is often said that two Canons were current, a 
larger Canon especially at Alexandria and among 
the Jews of the Dispersion, and a smaller Canon in 


92 II. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


Palestine. And there is thus much truth in the 
statement that many of these Apocryphal Books 
were included in the Alexandrian translation, and so 
gained currency, especially in Christian circles; that 
the early Christian writers of Alexandria were much 
given to the use of Apocryphal Books, and that the 
greatest of them, Origen, deliberately defended that 
use in his famous controversy with Julius Africanus 
about the additions to Daniel. It is true also, on 
the other hand, that the restricted Canon was in the 
first instance the work of the Jewish doctors?, and 
that so far as it maintained itself in the Christian 
Church it did so through the disposition which was 
shown by some of the most learned and influential 
of the Fathers to go back to the Jewish tradition, 
the Hebraica veritas, which the Reformed Churches 
afterwards took as their standard 3, 

And yet there are considerable qualifications to be 
made on both sides. The great majority of these 


? Lagarde (ALittherl. iv. 345) has the curious and I believe quite 
untenable idea, that the Jewish Canon arose among the Dzaspora out 
of the desire to demonstrate the antiquity of the Jewish literature (as 
in Joseph. ¢. Apion.). He thinks that the Palestinian Canon may be 
a correction or modification of the Hellenistic. See on the other side 
Konig, Lvnlertung, p. 449. 

* The chain of writers who maintain what is substantially the 
Jewish as distinct from the Alexandrian Canon includes Melito of 
Sardis, Origen (in theory if not in practice), Athanasius, Cyril 
of Jerusalem, Amphilochius and Gregory Nazianzen, Rufinus of 
Aquileia, and most emphatically and clearly, Jerome. On this 
branch of the history, see especially Westcott, Zhe Buble in the 
Church; Buhl, Kanon, p. 49 ff.; Wildeboer, Hef Onéstaan, &c., 
p. 66 ff. 


Contents of the Old Testament. 93 


Apocryphal Books were composed not in Egypt but 
in Palestine; and the extent of their circulation both 
amongst Jews and Christians seems to have been de- 
termined not by any geographical boundaries so much 
as by the difference between popular and learned 
opinion. With the Jews learning was more exclusively 
concentrated upon the Scriptures; and with the Jews 
also the deference paid to the opinions of the learned 
was more complete; so that when we add to this 
the greater centralization and more effective authority 
of the schools of Jamnia and Tiberias, we are not sur- 
prised that the Rabbinical tradition presents greater 
unity and continuity than the corresponding tradition 
amongst Christians. 

The two writers from whom we have been especi- 
ally quoting both illustrate the real nature of the 
opposition. Philo’s ideas of inspiration are very 
wide. The centre and type of all inspiration with 
him is the Law of Moses. He does indeed, as we 
have seen, use exceedingly strong expressions in 
regard to the prophets, but he is fond of describing 
both prophets and psalmists as ‘followers or disciples 
of Moses’ (Matcéws γνώριμοι, φοιτηταί, θιασῶται), as if 
their inspiration was referred to their connexion with 
him. We have seen that Philo extended his theory 
of inspiration to the Septuagint translators. Nor does 
he stop there. He speaks in terms of the utmost 
reverence of the Greek philosophers. Plato is the 
“most sacred’ (ἱερώτατος), Heraclitus the ‘great and 
renowned, Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno, and Cle- 
anthes, ‘godlike men, and as it were a true and in 


94 17. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


the strict sense sacred band?’ But with Philo all 
good men are inspired*, Indeed, he claims to have 
had moments of inspiration himself*, And yet in 
spite of this very comprehensive theory Philo never 
quotes as authoritative any but the Canonical Books ; 
it is clear that he attributes to them an authority 
which is really unique in its kind +, 

Josephus in like manner makes some use of Apo- 
cryphal materials in the course of his history, but 
he is quite explicit in laying down a list of twenty-two 
Books, five of the Law, thirteen Prophets, and four 
containing hymns to God and patterns of life for 
men, which really correspond to our own Canon, 
He assigns a reason for this of which we shall have 
more to say presently. 

In regard to the New Testament the case stands 
thus. The great mass of authoritative teaching is 
all derived from the Canonical Books, But there 
are some instances in which it is clear that the 
writer has been influenced by Apocryphal texts ὅ. 
There are also a few quotations which cannot be 
exactly identified in the Books of our present Canon, 


1 Passages in Schiirer, Gesch. d. Jiid. Volkes, ii. 868. 

2 Quis rer. div. her. 52 (Mang. i. 510). 

5. De Cherub. 9 (Mang. i. 143); De Migr. Abraamr, ἢ (Mang. i. 441); 
also Dienstfertig, uf sap., p. 17. 

* Cf Drummond, Philo Judaeus, i. 15. 

5 The books of which most use has been made in this way are 
Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus: see especially, for St. Paul an essay by 
Grafe in Theol. Abhandlungen Carl von Weizsdcher gewidmet (Frei- 
burg i. B., 1892), p. 253 ff.; and for St. James, Dr. J. B. Mayor’s 
commentary, p. Ixxiii. ff. 


Contents of the Old Testament. 95 


and in regard to which there are ancient statements 
referring them to lost Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. 
Lastly, in the Epistle of St. Jude there is an express 
quotation from the Book of Enoch, which is treated 
as if it were the genuine work of the patriarch. 
The first group of facts is of no more importance 
than that St. Paul should quote as he does from 
Aratus or Epimenides'. The instances which come 
under the second have all some element of doubt 
about them*. But the quotation from the Book of 
Enoch is quite unequivocal and it definitely prevents 
us from saying that no Apocryphal Book is recog- 
nised by a Canonical writer. In this, as in so many 
other things, it is impossible to draw a hard and 
fast line, though in any case the use of the Apo- 
crypha bears a very small proportion to that of the 
Old Testament, and in respect to spiritual authority 
enters into no sort of competition with it. 

What we see in the first century is thus a con- 
siderable body of literature of a quasi-prophetic 
character, or at least written with a view to edifi- 
cation, springing up most thickly in Palestine, but 
circulating also in the principal centres of Hellenistic 
Judaism, everywhere treated with a certain respect, 
and most of it enjoying an extended popularity, 
which no doubt in many cases encroached upon 
the authority of the Canon. But we see also at the 
same time, that in proportion as we rise in the 


ments xvi. 29; Lit. 1. 12. 
* These instances are discussed by Ryle, Canon, p. 154 f., and in 
a different sense by Wildeboer, Hef Onis/aan, &c., pp. 44~47- 


96 LI. The Old Testament in the First Ceniury. 


scale of spiritual intelligence and insight, and in 
proportion as there is a deliberate intention to decide 
what is authoritative and what is not, there is an in- 
creasing tendency to draw a line round the books of our 
present Canon and to mark them off from all others. 
It must have been really before the latter half of 
the first century that this Canon was formed. We 
have seen that the twenty-two Books of Josephus 
were neither more nor less than the Old Testament 
of our own Bible. We count there thirty-nine books ; 
but the difference is due to the fact that Books which 
we count separately were combined together in a 
single volume. The Twelve Minor Prophets were 
so combined; also what are with us the two Books 
of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, form each one 
volume, as do Ezra and Nehemiah, Judges and Ruth, 
Jeremiah and Lamentations. The way in which 
Josephus speaks of this collection shows that it was 
not any new thing, but already well established in 
his day. And the discussions which seem to have 
gone on in the Rabbinical School at Jamnia about 
the end of the century also imply a completed Canon. 
Or rather we ought perhaps to say a Canon com- 
pleted provisionally but not as yet definitively. For 
the discussions turn not so much on the question 
whether certain books ought to be admitted into 
a collection then being formed, as whether they 
had been rightly admitted into a collection already 
existing’, After the beginning of the second century 


1 Ryle, p. 171 ἢ; Buhl, Kan. uw. Text, p. 25 f. That the disputed 
books were treated by the leading Rabbis of the first century as 


Contents of the Old Testament. 97 


a few sporadic doubts appear here and there, but 
they never made serious impression. There was 
just a small section of books the position of which 
was less secure than the rest, but that was all. The 
different books were on a rather different footing 1. 
The doubts about the Book of Jonah only find ex- 
pression in late works. Those as to Ezekiel came to a 
head at a particular date, and were solved by an indi- 
vidual doctor, Hananiah the son of Hezekiah, a con- 
temporary of St. Paul. Those in regard to the Book 
of Proverbs were probably dismissed quite early. The 
hesitation as to Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs 
was more persistent: these books evidently formed 
the subject of continued discussion in the school at 
Jamnia. On the Song of Songs, R. Akiba seems to 
have pronounced the decisive word. ‘God forbid,’ he 
said, ‘that any man of Israel should deny that the 
Song of Songs defileth the hands (2,6. is canonical ἢ); 
for the whole world is not equal to the day on 
which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For 
all the Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs 
is the holiest of the holy; and if there is dispute, it 
is groundless except in the case of Koheleth*’ The 
dispute as to Koheleth and Esther lasted longest. 
That as to Esther went on into Christian times. and 


Canonical will have been seen from the references given above, p. 82. 
It is said however that while the School of Hillel affirmed, that of 
Shammai denied, the Canonicity of Ecclesiastes (Buhl, p. 23). See 
also below, p. 107. 
1 For the following see Ryle, p. 192 f.; Buhl, pp. 28-31. 
2 See p. 111 below. .? 5 Ryle, p. 199. 
H 


98 Ll, The Old Testament in the First Century. 


extended to a number of Christian writers. It is not 
surprising that Christian theologians should have 
hesitated to incorporate this book into their Bible, but 
they finally acquiesced in its presence through the 
deference paid to Jewish tradition. 

We have confined ourselves so far to the evidence 
of the first century a.p, And we are not concerned at 
present to speculate as to origins, The whole question 
of origins we leave for investigation in subsequent 
lectures. We may however ask whether there are no 
finger-posts to point the way back behind the Christian 
era. There are such finger-posts, of which recent 
works on the Canon have made ample use. The 
starting-point here is the Jewish tradition as to the 
divisions of the Canon ‘and the order of the Books. 
The main outlines of this tradition can be traced back 
as far as the first notice which has come down to us of 
anything like a Canon, viz. the prologue to Ecclesi- 
asticus, written after, but probably not very long after, 
the year 132 B.c. That prologue contains repeated 
reference to a collection of writings consisting of ‘the 
Law, the Prophets,’ and certain ‘other books, which 
the language used implies lay, not only before the 
author of the prologue, but also before his grandfather, 
the author of the Hebrew original, now known to us 
in its Greek form and under its Greek title Eccle- 
siasticus. Its translator, the younger Jesus son of 
Sirach, says of the elder that ‘when he had much 
given himself to the reading of the Law and the 
Prophets and the other books of their fathers, and had 
gotten therein good judgment, he was drawn on also 


The Jewish Tradition. 99 


himself to write something pertaining to learning and 
wisdom. The inference is a little less clear that the 
books so closely studied by the grandfather were 
already known to him under the same three divisions 1. 
But, the fact that the books are described under these 
divisions three times over in the compass of a small 
page, and without anything to suggest that the idea of 
the three divisions is a novelty, would seem to show 
that it had been sometime established, and therefore 
would go back to a time hardly short of that of the 
grandfather, or in other words we may say to a date 
not later than the decade 170-160 8.6. 

A piece of evidence, disputed but on the whole 
probable, is supplied by the treatise De Vita Con- 
templativa which passes for Philo’s. Here in § 3 
(Mangey, ii. 475) there is a reference to ‘laws, oracles 
delivered by prophets, and hymns.’ Of recent years 
the genuineness of this treatise has been much 
questioned, but since the monograph of Massebieau 
the tide of opinion seems to have turned in its 
favour 3. 

The next trace of the threefold division would 
be in St. Luke’s narrative of the Walk to Emmaus 
(St. Luke xxiv. 44), where reference is made to ‘the 
Law, the Prophets and the Psalms’ as prophesying 


* Dr. Cheyne thinks that this was the case. ‘Sirach... had “the 
Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the books,” the latter collection 
being a kind of appendix, still open to additions’ (/od and Solomon, 
p. 185). 

* Differently Wildeboer, p. 32 f. Massebieau’s treatise is entitled, 
Le tratté de la Vie Contemplative et la question des Thérapeutes, Paris, 
1888, 

H 2 


100 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


of Christ. Then would come Josephus, who gives 
the number of the books—five of the Law, thirteen 
of the Prophets (including the Historical Books), and 
four of Hymns and practical teaching, making a total 
of twenty-two. 

This assignment does not exactly agree with that of 
the Hebrew tradition, which we have in full in the 
Talmudic treatise Baba Lathra, confirmed substantially 
by Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus*. Josephus mixes the 
Jewish with the Greek tradition, borrowing the three- 
fold division from the one, the number of the books 
and the order (or absence of order) from the other. 
In the Alexandrian Version there was no really 
traditional order, but the books were usually classed 
together roughly according to subject. 

In the Hebrew tradition too there is what at first 
sight appears to be a rough classification of subjects, 
This however is not systematically carried out; and 
the deviations from it are significant. 

The three divisions are called the Law, the Prophets, 
and the Kethudine (7.e. ‘Writings’) or Alagiographa. 
The Law is homogeneous. The Prophets are also 
homogeneous; the Historical Books coming first under 
the name of the Former Prophets, and then the 
Prophets strictly so called, or the Latter Prophets. 
But why is it that Daniel is not classed among the 
Prophets ? and why is not Chronicles classed as history? 


1 This gives five books of Law, eight Prophets, and eleven Keéhudim 
or Hagiographa; in all 24. 

2 The preface to his version of the Books of Kings: cp. also the 
preface to Daniel. 


The Jewish Tradition. IOI 


For some time it has been seen what is the answer 
to these questions. The truth undoubtedly is that the 
threefold division represents three successive layers or 
stages in the history of the Collection. The Books 
of the Law were collected first; the Prophets and 
Histories second; and the reason why the Book of 
Daniel was not included among the one and the Books 
of Chronicles among the other was simply that at the 
date when the second collection was made they had 
not been composed, or at least were not currently 
accepted in the same sense as the other books!. 

Here there is clearly a gleam of light thrown over 
the history of the Canon. The results obtained 
through it have recently been called in question, but 
only in support of an arbitrary theory which sacrifices 
good reasons to bad ones*. The phenomena really 
fit in well together. And there is now a large amount 
of consent among scholars that the Canon of the Law 
was practically ὃ complete at the time of the promulga- 
tion of the Pentateuch by Ezra and Nehemiah in the 
year 444 B.c., and that of the Prophets in the course 
of the third century B.c.4 As to the closing of the 


* The Books of Chronicles were probably composed but not 
accepted. 

* Duhm, /esaia (Gottingen, 1892), p. vi. Lagarde, who casts some 
doubts upon the integrity of the Book of Daniel, yet treats Dan. ix. 2 
as written under Antiochus Epiphanes and as implying a collection of 
Prophetic Writings (AZ/7//hel. iv. 344). 

3 Cornill, Kuenen, and others assume a certain limited amount of 
redaction after this date. Cornill would make the process complete 
by about 400 8.6. 

* Cornill places the completion of this portion of the Canon about 


το 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


Canon of the third group, the Aethudc:m, there is 
perhaps more room for difference of opinion. A 
common view is that the distinct recognition of these 
books as Scripture would be not later than 100 B.c. 
Many data seem to make this at least a terminus ad 
guem. The Book of Daniel is presupposed in a part 
of the Szdylline Oracles (111. 396-400) which there 
seem to be good grounds for dating about the year 
1401, and in the First Book of Maccabees (i. 54, ii. 
59, 60) which falls in the early years of the next 
century. Ecclesiastes is quoted with the formula ‘it 
is written’ in a Talmudic story of a conversation 
between Simon ben Shetach and Alexander Jannaeus ? 
{Εἰ Ὁ, 105-79). The Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and 
Chronicles were current in the Greek version, which 
had already a long history behind it in the time of 
Philo and the New Testament* And all these books 
are quoted as authoritative in recorded sayings of the 
250 B.C. (p. 102), Wildeboer about 200, which however is characterized 
by Buhl (p. 12) as ‘entschieden zu spat.’ 

1 Schiirer, Gesch. d. Jiid. Volk. ii. 794-799. 

2 Ryle, Canon, p. 138 f. 

8 Perhaps at once the most conspicuous and the most interesting 
example of this is the rendering of Ps. xl. 6. The Hebrew has here 
literally ‘ears hast thou digged’ (i. e. probably ‘ opened,’ though some 
understand ‘ pierced’) ‘for me’: the LXX followed by Heb. x. 5 has 
σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω po. The most probable explanation of this is that 
the original rendering was ὠτία, which became corrupted into σῶμα 


through the duplication of the final s of the preceding word ἠθέλησας 
(HOEAHCACQTIA—HOEAHCACCOMA). As this change 
must have taken place before the archetype of all the extant MSS. of 
the LXX (the four minuscules in which ὠτία is found probably derive it 
from Aquila or Symmachus) as well as Ep. to Hebrews, it is thrown 
back to a very remote antiquity. 


The Jewish Tradition. 103 


Rabbis from Hillel onwards, with some traces of a 
difference of opinion as to Ecclesiastes 1. 

The significant part in the Jewish tradition is the 
assignment of books to the three groups, not their 
arrangement within the groups. The internal order 
appears to be due to reflexion partly critical and 
partly suggested by the subject-matter. We must 
of course beware of assuming that the reasons 
assigned by the later Rabbis were those which de- 
termined the original authors of the collection. Thus 
it is hardly likely that the true reason is given for 
the sequence of the Major Prophets, among whom 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel are placed before Isaiah. The 
Talmudic tract accounts for this by saying that the 
Books of Kings end with desolation, that Jeremiah 
is all desolation, that Ezekiel begins with desolation 
and ends with consolation, and that Isaiah is all 
consolation, so that desolation is fitly joined to deso- 
lation and consolation to consolation; an idea which 
is not without its pathos and beauty, but which 
belongs rather to the time when the harps were 
hung up and the Rabbis were occupied with the 
wistful retrospect of their past history, than to the 
simpler motives at work when the books were first 
collected. That the place assigned to Isaiah has 
been affected by the incorporation of the last twenty- 
seven chapters, which are really later than Jere- 
miah and Ezekiel, would be a welcome supposition 
if it were probable, but it appears more likely that 
Jeremiah was placed next to the later chapters of 


1 Supra, p. 97. 


104 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


2 Kings, with which his book is so closely connected, 
and Isaiah immediately before his contemporary 
Hosea!, The order of the Minor Prophets probably 
does aim at being chronological. But here too the 
chronology is rather such as might be arrived at by 
a not very recondite criticism than handed down from 
the time when the books were composed. 

It is however a fact of real importance that the 
Jews should have preserved the memory of the steps 
by which the Canon was formed. It was not pre- 
served everywhere. The Alexandrian translators and 
those who followed them seem to have arranged the 
books simply by their subject-matter. And the varied 
classifications proposed at a later date by Christian 
Fathers? (such for instance as the four Pentateuchs 
with two supernumerary books in one of the lists of 
Epiphanius) are all of the nature of learned after- 
thoughts. But the central line of Jewish tradition as 
handed down by the Palestinian Rabbis does seem 
to retain a slender thread of genuine historical remi- 
niscence. It is true that the oldest Rabbinical treatise 
which touches upon the subject of the Canon, the 
Baba Bathra, contains a number of statements about 
the authorship of the books which are absurd enough. 
But these it is clear are no traditions in the strict 
sense, but only guesses which have grown up round 
the tradition, and which have no better warrant than 


* So Buhl, Ὁ. 38; cf. Ryle, p. 227 f.; Kirkpatrick, Zheol. of Proph. 
p- 360, n. 

® See the tables in Studia Biblica, iii. 227-232, and in Ryle, Canon, 
Excursus C, 


Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 105 


that which belongs to Rabbinical criticism of the 
second or third centuries. 


III. We have spoken so far freely of Apocryphal 
and Canonical Books, using the words in their later 
sense to denote a certain class of writings; but in 
approaching the third section of our subject, the 
means by which these two classes were discriminated 
from each other, we have first to ask what was meant 
by the word ‘Apocryphal, not as we might conceive 
it used by the first framers of the Canon whose 
motives we can only reach by conjecture, with which 
we have not as yet to do, but in the first century of 
our era when the Canon begins to have a sufficient 
history. The Greek ἀπόκρυφος is a translation of a 
late Hebrew or Aramaic word meaning ‘hidden,’ 
‘withdrawn from publicity. It had at first a much 
milder signification than that which we attach to it. 
In a literal sense it was used of the rolls which were 
put away because they were worn out or because of 
faults in the writing. In a more metaphorical sense 
it meant that a book was not suitable for public 
reading. It implied in itself nothing more than this, 
no suspicion as to authorship, no doubts as to doc- 
trine. There could not well be a better commentary 
upon this use than is contained in the famous letter 
of Origen to Africanus in defence of the story of 
Susanna. Africanus had criticized this as not con- 
tained in the Hebrew Canon. Origen replies that 
the Jews had done all in their power to withdraw 
from the knowledge of the laity facts which seemed 


106 [7]. The Old’ Testament in the First Century. 


to cast an imputation on their elders and rulers, ‘some 
of which,’ he adds, ‘are preserved in apocryphal books.’ 
In like manner the sawing asunder of the prophet 
Isaiah alluded to in the Epistle to the Hebrews was 
not to be found in any of ‘the public books’ (τῶν 
φανερῶν βιβλίων) but occurred in one of the Apo- 
crypha, and the account referred to by our Lord 
of the murder of Zacharias the son of Barachias 
was not in any of the books of the Old Testament, 
having been excluded from them because it too cast 
a stain upon the judges of Israel. The Apocryphal 
Books thus spoken of might clearly have every other 
claim to respect although they were not accounted 
fit for public reading '. 

There was however another sense of the word 
‘apocryphal, branching off from that just mentioned. 
The ramification is well marked in the familiar passage 
(xiv. 44-46) at the end of the Fourth Book of Ezra. 
After the destruction of the ancient Scriptures Ezra 
and his five companions by means of a special in- 
spiration write out ninety-four books in forty days. 
Of these ninety-four, twenty-four are the Canonical 
Books which he is bidden to publish openly that 
worthy and unworthy alike may read in them, but 
the remaining seventy are to be kept secret and put 
into the hands only of the wise. This is a fiction 
intended to explain the reservation till so late.a date 


1 See especially Zahn, Gesch. d. Neutestl. Kanons, i. 123 ff.; Wilde- 
boer, p. 79 f. Konig argues against the equivalence of the Greek and 
Hebrew terms (Ln/eitung, p. 467 f.); he would make Origen’s use 
more nearly in accord with that of other Fathers. 


Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 107 


of the Fourth Book of Ezra itself, but the larger 
number is evidently chosen to cover other works of 
a like nature which had been or might be pub 
lished. There were in circulation not a few such 
Apocalypses put forward under ancient names (Enoch, 
Moses, Baruch) and needing the same excuse. But 
these were not the only works to claim an esoteric 
character. The Apocalypses in question do not seem 
to have been treated as esoteric; they were in fact 
popular among the early Christians. But the Gnostic 
leaders put forth similar claims for their own pro- 
ductions. These were really formidable enemies. 
And so the idea of ‘esoteric’ became almost synony- 
mous with ‘heretical. It was thus that ‘apocryphal’ 
acquired the bad connotation with which it is found 
from Irenaeus and Tertullian onwards!, 

The double sense of the word is imprinted strongly 
upon the history of the Old Testament Canon. The 
discussions of which records have come down to us from 
the Jewish schools have for the most part to do with 
the question what works were to be considered ‘apocry- 
phal’ in the milder sense of ‘withdrawn from public 
use in the synagogue,’ They deal with books which 
had already obtained a certain amount of recognition 
and which it was not sought to deprive of that recog- 
nition entirely®. The criticisms directed against them 


' Cf Holtzmann, Linleitung in ὦ. N. T. p. 146, ed. 3. 
? This seems to be a truer description of the question at issue than 


that which is given either by Buhl or Wildeboer. According to Buhl | 


(p. 25 f.) the controversies in the Jewish schools imply the existence 
of a Canon, and arose out of attempts to eject (‘ excanonisiren’) 


108 7]. The Old Testament tn the First Century. 


are not of that root and branch character. If the 
Book of Ezekiel was questioned it was because it 
presented certain difficulties when compared with the 
Law. A famous doctor of the first half of the first 
century, Hananiah the son of Hezekiah, set himself to 
solve these difficulties, and with that all opposition 
to the Book was removed. If there was for a brief 
moment some hesitation about the Book of Proverbs, 
it seems to have been because it was thought to give 
too seductive a picture of vice!, and so to be unsuited 
to the young. If there was a longer and better 
grounded objection to the Book of Ecclesiastes, it was 
(1) because it was thought to be inconsistent with 
itself, (2) because it was thought to be inconsistent 
with the Psalter, and (3) because it contained doubtful 
doctrine—all natural criticisms, and criticisms which 
are made on a larger scale to this day. The Song 
of Songs was probably rescued by the introduction of 
the Haggadah or Jewish method of allegorizing?. It 
was this which probably led R. Akiba to assign to it 


certain books from it. According to Wildeboer (pp. 63-65) they are 
proof that the Canon itself was not yet formed. Of the two, Buhl 
seems to be nearer the mark: it is true that the controversies pre- 
suppose the existence of a Canon, and true also that in a strict sense 
the disputed books were in danger of being ejected from it, but only 
to be placed on the lower grade of books regarded with all respect 
but not considered to be suitable for public reading: it would by no 
means follow that they were reduced at once to the level of profane 
literature. See however Additional Note A: On the Date of the 
formation of the Jewish Canon. 

1 The principal passage objected to was Prov. vii. 7-20. 

* Instances of such allegorical interpretation from the earliest period 
are given by Bacher, Agad. d. Zann. i. 57, 115, 201, 263, 318. 


Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 109 


so high a value. The same method was applied to 
the Book of Esther, which also made good its place 
because it was thought to show signs of inspiration, 
as involving knowledge of things which only in- 
spiration could have revealed (Esth. i. 22; ix. 10, 
1 16)? 

It will be observed that all these arguments turn 
upon the internal evidence of the book itself. That 
which turns upon the comparison of doubtful with 
acknowledged books presents the closest analogy to 
the criteria applied to the case of the New Testa- 
ment; but the doubts raised were less serious. 

Where Christian writers spoke of books as ‘apo- 
cryphal’ in the stronger sense, the Jews spoke of them 
as being simply ‘outside’ the Canon. This term is 
applied to the First Book of Maccabees, the two 
Wisdoms, and to the writings of Christian and other 
heretics*®. There is however this difference; that 
whereas the latter may not be read at all, a book like 
Ecclesiasticus may be read as one would read a letter +. 

The only traces of an attempt of any ‘outside’ 
books to gain admission to the Jewish Canon are in 
the. case of Ecclesiasticus and 1 Maccabees. The 
former is twice quoted in the Talmud with the 
formula usually reserved for the citation of Scripture ; 


s * Bacher, i. 318. 

5. Ibid. i. 397; ii. 49. For further details in regard to these dis- 
cussions see Ryle, Canon, pp. 192-201; Buhl, pp. 28-30; Wildeboer, 
ΡΡ. 55-60. 

* Ryle, p. 188; cf Konig, Linleitung, p. 466. 

* R. Akiba, quoted by Buhl, p. 8; Ryle, κί sup. 


110 77. The Old Testament tn the First Century. 


and there is other evidence that it stood high in 
honour’, But it never attained to Canonical rank; 
and there is still less proof of such a dignity being 
assigned to 1 Maccabees. In matters of religion the 
Jews were a docile people; and the decisions of the 
scribes and doctors, once definitely given, were not 
questioned. 

When we ask on what positive principle the Old 
Testament had its lines of demarcation drawn so 
clearly, direct evidence from the time of the real 
formation of the Canon fails us. But if we look for 
the ideas current in the first century of our era, one 
principle at least stands out prominently. Alike in 
Philo, Josephus, and the Talmud the central concep- 
tion appears to be that of Prophecy. We have seen 
how Philo and Josephus differ in what they under- 
stand by this; how Philo’s idea is derived largely 
from the Greek ‘mantic,’ while that of Josephus is 
more strictly Jewish and Biblical. But both writers 
agree in taking a very high view of the degree of 
Divine possession or inspiration which Prophecy im- 
plies. To both Moses is the greatest of the prophets, 
‘the prophet’ of whom the rest are but copies. And 
both writers regard the gift of prophecy as extending 
beyond the Canon*®. Josephus thought that the pro- 
phetic gift was imparted to individuals like John 
Hyrcanus; and Philo, as we have seen, claimed a 
share of it for himself. Still, Philo makes a tacit dis- 
tinction, as he appeals only to the Canonical Books as 


1 Ryle, p. 184. 
? Gerlach, Werssagungen, &c., p. 36. 


Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 111 


primary authorities. And Josephus lays down quite 
explicitly that there was an unbroken line of prophets 
from Moses to the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus? 
(465-425 ».c.), and that the books written after that 
date are not deserving of equal credence because the 
prophetic gift had ceased. The Canon is with him co- 
extensive with the active exercise of prophecy, and it 
is the prophetic inspiration which gives the books their 
value, Josephus was doubtless mistaken in supposing 
that all the books of the Canon could be got within those 
limits, and that the Historical Books were all composed 
by contemporary prophets. But his leading idea is 
an intelligible and a sound one. And the same idea 
is distinctly enunciated in several Talmudic passages. 
R. Akiba excludes Ecclesiasticus as having been written 
‘since the days of the prophets.’ ‘The tractate Seder 
Olam lays down that till the time of Alexander the 
Great the people prophesied through the Holy Spirit, 
but from that time onwards there were only the ‘ wise 
men. Another tractate says that no book written 
since the cessation of prophecy ‘defiles the hands’? 
—another Talmudical expression reserved for the 
Canonical Books. And it is in agreement with this 
view of the nature of inspiration that even the authors 
of the Hagiographa are called ‘prophets*’ It is 


1 7. 5. τὸ Esther (Buhl, p. 35). 

2 On ‘defiling the hands,’ see above, p. 78, and for fuller details, 
Buhl, p. 7; Wildeboer, p. 77 ff.; Ryle, p. 186 f.; Robertson Smith, 
O. T. J. C., p. 185, ed. 2; Weber, Alésynagog. Theol. p. 82; Konig, 
Linlettung, p. 450 ff., &c. 

3 See the several passages in Bunl, pp. 8, 35, 37. 


ττ2 Π]. [he Old Testament in the First Century. 


a satisfaction to find such ample evidence that the 
Jewish Church in discharging this perhaps the most 
important of all its functions, should have had con- 
sciously in view a principle which is so real and so 
fruitful. 

In Christian times one incidental attempt was made 
to give an altogether wider scope to the Canon of the 
Old Testament. Tertullian in arguing for the admis- 
sion of the Book of Enoch, which he assumes to be the 
genuine work of the patriarch, urges that it contains 
prophecies of our Lord, and that Christians ought not 
to reject whatever really belonged to them. He adds 
an appeal to the well-known text on inspiration (2 
Tim. iii. 16) in the form that ‘all scripture which is 
suitable for edification is divinely inspired?’ Such 
a principle as this would have thrown open the doors 
very wide. But, like so much in Tertullian, it was 
only an idea struck out in the heat of the moment, 
and was not pressed further either by himself or by 
any one else. 

The Canon of the Old Testament, like that of the 
New, was very early associated with the mystical signi- 
ficance of numbers. There were several different 
ways of reckoning the total of the Books, of which 
two were older and more important than the rest. 
The Talmudic tradition gives the number as twenty- 
four (counting Ruth and Lamentations separately). 


1 De Cult. Fem. i. 3: Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de 
Domino praedicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino reictendum est, quod 
pertineat ad nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam aedificationt habilem 
adivinitus inspirart, 


Symbolism of Numbers. 113 


This is the total in one place mentioned, and in one 
place adopted, by Jerome’. It is mentioned in like 
manner by Hilary of Poitiers? (who makes up the 
number differently by adding Tobit and Judith), and 
is adopted by Victorinus of Pettau* and in Mommsen’s 
list. There is yet earlier authority for it in 4 Ezra 
xiv. 45, where the twenty-four books ‘first written’ 
are clearly those of the Jewish Canon. Jerome, Vic- 
torinus, and the list connect the twenty-four Books 
with the ‘twenty-four elders’ of the Apocalypse ; 
Hilary with the twenty-four letters of the Greek 
alphabet; the Rabbis connect them with the ‘twenty- 
four watches’ in the Temple’. 

But there is another numeration, equally or even 
more ancient, which by combining Ruth with Judges 
and Lamentations with Jeremiah, makes the total 
twenty-two. This is found inferentially in Melito of 
Sardis and Rufinus, expressly in Josephus, Cyril of 
Jerusalem, Leontius and Nicephorus, and expressly 
also with the further equation of the twenty-two Books 
with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in 
Origen, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius 
(in one of his lists), Jerome, and Hilary of Poitiers © 
There can be no doubt that this calculation also is of 


1 Prol. Galeat. and Prol. in Ezr. 

*"Prol. in Psali. 15. 

* On Apoc. iv. 7-10 (Migne, Patr. Laz. v. 324). 

* Stud. Bibl, iii. 223. As the MS. in which this list is contained 
has now left this country, it is best to call it after the scholar who first 
called attention to it. 

ποὺ} ΛΟ Ὁ. A. 7. p.'2: 

6 See the tables in Stud. Brbl., iii. 227-232. 

I 


114 77]. The Old Testament tn the First Century. 


Jewish origin, as it is not only found in Palestine 
where Josephus learnt it and Melito went to seek it, 
but it is clearly adapted to the Jewish Canon and to 
the Hebrew alphabet. There is reason to think that 
the reckoning ‘twenty-four’ came not from Palestine 
but from Babylonia! ; and besides the imposing list of 
authorities for the lower number, its equation with the 
Hebrew alphabet has every appearance of being older 
and more original than that with the Temple-watches. 

I do not think it has been noticed that behind this 
number ‘twenty-two’ there lay in the minds of those 
who first called attention to it a profound significance. 
The number ‘twenty-two,’ more particularly as repre- 
senting the Hebrew alphabet, played a prominent 
part in Jewish cosmological speculation. Dr. Eders- 
heim gives the following account of this, based mainly 
upon the Book Yetserah: ‘We distinguish the sub- 
stance and the form of creation; that which is, and 
the mode in which it is... . In the Sepher Yetsirah 
these Divine realities (the substance) are represented 
by the ten numerals, and their form by the twenty- 
two letters which constitute the Hebrew alphabet— 
language being viewed as the medium of connexion 
between the spiritual and the material ; as the form in 
which the spiritual appears. At the same time num- 
ber and language indicate also the arrangement and 
the mode of creation, and, in general, its boundaries. 
... If the ten Sephiroth (i.e. the numbers) give the 
substance, the twenty-two letters are the form of crea- 
tion and of revelation. “By giving them form and shape, 

? Fiirst, Kan. d. A. Z., p. 4. 


Critical Presuppositions. 115 


and by interchanging them, God has made the soul of 
everything that has been made, or shall be made.” 
“Upon those letters, also, has the Holy One, Whose 
Name be praised, founded His holy and glorious 
Name.” These letters are next subdivided, and their 
application in all the departments of nature is shown. 
In the unit, creation: [in] the triad, world, time and man 
are found. Above all these is the Lord’? Is it not 
obvious to see in these speculations as to the alphabet 
the middle link between cosmological theory and the 
Canon? And are we not at once reminded of Origen 
comparing the Four Gospels to the four elements and 
Irenaeus to the four winds and four quarters of the 
globe, if not of anticipations of both in the Shepherd of 
Hermas ? 


One more preliminary question remains to be 
answered before we embark on our larger inquiry. 
It is necessary for the inquirer to take up a definite 
attitude towards the criticism of the Old Testament. 
What is that attitude to be? What is the attitude 
which should be taken up by one who is not a 
specialist and can only claim to have studied the 
subject from without as conscientiously and as disin- 
terestedly as he can? Such an one, I cannot help 
thinking, will feel that the case for what is called the 
critical view of the Old Testament comes to him 
with great force. In England until quite lately, 
although we have had critical commentaries and 

» Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 692. I venture to correct 
an evident misprint of punctuation in the last sentence but one. 


I2 


116 [1]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


monographs on portions of the Old Testament, we 
have not had any complete and connected presenta- 
tion of the critical theory as a whole. This we now 
have for the literature in Dr. Driver’s well-known 
Introduction’, and for history and literature combined 
in the A/zddert Lectures for last year—a book which, 
though quite uncompromising in its criticism, wins upon 
us, not only by the charm of an attractive style, but by 
its evident candour and enthusiasm”. When we turn 
from these to the leaders of Continental opinion, 
Kuenen and Wellhausen, and compare their writings 
with those which maintain either the traditional view 
or a view but slightly modified from the traditional, it 
is impossible to resist the impression that the critical 
argument is in the stronger hands, and that it is 
accompanied by a far greater command of the ma- 
terials. The cause of criticism, if we take the word 
in a wide sense and do not identify it too closely 
with any particular theory, is, it is difficult to doubt, 
the winning cause. Indeed criticism is only the pro- 
cess by which theological knowledge is brought into 
line with other knowledge; and as such it is inevitable. 

1 It is right to add that besides a long list of works dealing with 
portions of the Old Testament, Dr. Cheyne also contributed to the 
Expositor for 1892 a brief but connected review of most of the 
points now in debate (now reprinted in Founders of Old Testament 
Critictsm, London, 1893). No divergence of opinion in connexion 
with this or any other recent work of his can obscure the debt which 
I owe to my old friend. 

? My one complaint against the author would be that he follows 
some of his authorities rather too faithfully; but he is receptive of 


influences from a standpoint other than his own, and I question 
whether he will remain quite where he is. 


Critical Presuppositions. 117 


And yet I cannot but think that the open-minded 
inquirer who retains his balance and is not simply 
carried off his feet by the set of the current, will 
not be able to avoid a suspicion that there is after 
all, especially in the way in which the critical case 
is presented on the Continent, something essentially 
one-sided. Kuenen wrote in the interest of almost 
avowed Naturalism !, and much the same may be said 
of Wellhausen. But to do so is to come to the Bible 
with a prejudice, just as much as in the case of those 
who come to it with the determination to find in it 
nothing but Supernaturalism. Both alike are apt to 
force their views upon the Bible instead of being 


? I observe that Mr. Montefiore (/ewrsh Quart. Rev., Jan. 1893, p. 
305) demurs to a similar description of Kuenen’s view by Prof. 
Robertson (cf also Driver, Jutrod. p. 194), on the strength of the 
opening sentences of the Religzon of Israel, which do assert the rule 
of God in the world. It is true that the reservation is made, but it is 
kept very much indeed in the background. For instance, in regard 
to the subject before us, Dr. Kuenen expended a whole volume of 593 
large octavo pages (Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, London, 1877) 
in proving that the prophets were of moved to speak by God, but 
that their utterances were all their own. The following extract will, 
I think, do justice to the position which Dr. Kuenen really held: ‘We 
do not allow ourselves to be deprived of God’s presence in history. 
In the fortunes and development of nations, and not least clearly in 
those of Israel, we see Him, the holy and all-wise Instructor of His 
human children. But the old con/rasts must be altogether set aside. 
So long as we derive a separate part of Israel’s religious life directly 
from God, and allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to 
intervene in even one single point, so long also our view of the whole 
continues to be incorrect, and we see ourselves here and there neces- 
sitated to do violence to the well-authenticated contents of the historical 
documents. It is the supposition of a natural development alone which 
accounts for all the phenomena’ (Prophets and Prophecy, &c., p. 585). 


m8 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


content to take them from it. And to one fallacy 
in particular I think we may say that both writers 
are exposed. It was natural that in pursuing a 
perfectly unfettered inquiry and correcting one by 
one the traditional dates of documents and institu- 
tions, there should be a tendency to lay too much 
stress on the first mention of either; with the result 
of either confusing that first mention with the real 
origin of the document or institution, or at least 
allowing far too little for growth and not sufficiently 
considering what the process of growth involves. 
This is a direction in which it would seem that the 
researches of the critical school will bear to be sup- 
plemented. 

Kuenen and Wellhausen have mapped out, on the 
whole I believe rightly, the main stages of develop- 
ment in the history of Hebrew literature. The next 
thing to be done was to determine the corresponding 
steps in the history of the people and of the religion. 
But at each step there is an argument backwards as 
well as forwards. The question at each successive 
stage is, What does that stage imply? What are its 
antecedents ? How must it have been reached ἢ What 
an amount of religious preparation is implied (e.g.) in 
the writings of Amos and Hosea! Our own scholars 
have paid and are paying especial attention to this 
line of investigation. Foremost among them in this 
respect is one of the ablest and most independent of 
our theologians, Dr. A. B. Davidson of Edinburgh. 
In his steps has followed, perhaps rather more one- 
sidedly, Professor James Robertson of Glasgow, in 


Critical Presuppositions. 119 


the Baird Lectures for 18891; our own Professor 
of Hebrew in his Jztroduction, and Dr. Robertson 
Smith, so long a leader in the vanguard of criticism, 
have shown themselves quite alive to this point of 
view ; and it is significant that just in this point the 
Hibbert Lecturer is distinguished—and distinguished 
to his advantage—from the Continental critics who 
would otherwise be nearest to him. But it can 
hardly as yet be said either that the balance of 
critical inquiry has been fully redressed or that 
the resources of a really scientific method for the 
study of the Old Testament have been exhausted. 
The true cure for a one-sided presentation of the 
facts is not to be sought in less of science but 
in more, not in laxer methods but in stricter. It 
remains to be seen how much of the current 
theories will be endorsed twenty years hence. Some 
of them I feel sure will have been pronounced 
impossible. 

In such a position of things it has seemed best to 
start from the critical theories, not as something fixed 
and absolute, but provisionally and hypothetically. 
In any case, whether they are true or not, it concerns 


1 T have experienced the same difficulty as Mr. Montefiore (au sup. 
p- 304) in ascertaining what exactly is Prof. Robertson’s own critical 
position. He uses a number of arguments which seem to me good 
and sound in restriction of current critical theories, but they fall far 
short of restoring the traditional view in its integrity or with only such 
slight modifications as are proposed (e. g.) by Bp. Ellicott. I gather 
that Prof. Robertson would go some way further than this, but he 
does not make it clear how much further. If this represents a real 
suspense of judgment, I would be the last to find fault with him. 


120 JJ, The Old Testament tn the First Century. 


us to know how far a full belief in Divine revelation 
is compatible with them. We may reasonably say 
that what they offer to us is a weznxzmeum which under 
no circumstances is capable of being reduced much 
further, and that the future is likely to yield data 
which are more and not less favourable to conclusions 
such as those adopted in these lectures. But if or 
in so far as that expectation should be realized, the 
argument which we are about to follow would be 
strengthened, and any confirmation of faith which it 
may bring would be more assured. 

In speaking of critical theories of the Old Testa- 
ment the layman may wish to be reminded what the 
crucial points in these are. Two may be described 
as general and two as particular. The general points 
are (i) the untrustworthy character of Jewish tradi- 
tions as to authorship unless confirmed by internal 
evidence; they are not in fact traditions in the strict 
sense at all, but only inferences and conjectures 
without historical basis: (ii) the composite character 
of very many of the books—the Historical Books 
consisting for the most part of materials more or less 
ancient set in a frame-work of later editing; some 
of the Prophetical Books containing as we now have 
them the work of several distinct authors bound up 
in a single volume; and books like the Psalms and 
Proverbs also not being all of a piece but made 
up of a number of minor collections only brought 
together by slow degrees. Two partecu/ar conclusions 
are of special importance: (i) the presence in the 
Pentateuch of a considerable element which in its 


Critical Presuppositions. 121 


present shape is held by many to be not earlier than 
the Captivity!; and (ii) the composition of the Book 
of Deuteronomy not long, or at least not very long, 
before its promulgation by King Josiah in the year 
621, which thus becomes a pivot-date in the history 
of Hebrew literature. To these positions, thus 
broadly stated, I must, so far as my present judgment 
goes, confess my own adhesion®. But the working 


* As to the extent of the document or group of documents there 
is very general agreement, but the agreement is less complete as to 
its date. Some writers of weight, Dillmann, Baudissin, Kittel (to 
whom may be added Buhl, Kanon u. Text, p. 8), still incline to 
place the main portion before the Exile. The substantial difference 
between the two views is however not very great. Reasonable 
supporters of the exilic or post-exilic date allow that many of the 
institutions of the so-called Priest’s Code are far older than the Code 
itself; and on the other hand, those who hold that the document 
is in the main pre-exilic, regard it as possessing a private and ‘ideal’ 
character, confined to a limited circle among the priests and not put 
into general circulation (see Driver, Jutroduction, p. 134 f.). 

* It is quite possible to hold this view as to the date of Deuteronomy 
and yet to give a natural sense to the word ‘found’ in 2 Kings xxii. 8, 
and to acquit Hilkiah and those who acted with him of a direct share 
in the composition of the book as well as in its publication. It is no 
doubt right to make allowance for the different conceptions of what is 
honourable current in different ages, but we ought not to widen the 
gap without a clear necessity and substantial evidence. These seem 
to me to be wanting for the view which has been put forward by 
Mr. Montefiore in the Avddert Lectures, pp. 179-181, and Dr. Cheyne 
in the Lxfosztor, 1892, i. 95-99 (Lounders of O. T. Criticism, 
pp. 267-272). : 

* With the view of the critical position given above may be com- 
pared another formulated with far more trenchant force by a Roman 
Catholic writer in the Contemporary Review for April 1893, p. 473 f. 
I doubt much whether some of the conclusions adopted by this writer 
will stand the test of time, but it cannot be denied that they have 
strong advocates at the present moment. 


12 71. The Old Testament in the First Century. 


out of them has not deprived the Old Testament 
of any of its value. On the contrary, stumbling- 
blocks have been removed; a far more vivid and 
more real apprehension of the Old Testament both 
as history and religion has been obtained; and, as 
I also hope to be able to show, the old conviction 
that we have in it a revelation from God to men is 
not only unimpaired but placed upon firmer foun- 
dations. 


Note to Lecture I. 123 


NOTE A: 


On the Date of the Formation of the Jewish Canon. 


THE controversies as to the date of the formation of the 
Jewish Canon seem really to turn upon the ambiguity in the 
meaning of the word ‘Canon’ itself. If by ‘Canon’ we mean 
the estimate of certain books as sacred and inspired, then 
we have proof that the Canon of the Old Testament existed 
from the time of Hillel, Philo and the New Testament, if not 
from the time of the books of Maccabees and Ecclesiasticus. 
But if by the Canon we mean that this estimate was formally 
and authoritatively recognised and that a list of books was 
drawn up to which the estimate applied, then we cannot say 
that the Canon of the Old Testament was formed before the 
transactions at Jamnia at the end of the first and beginning 
of the second centuries. It is just as in the case of the New 
Testament; we may say that the Canon begins with the 
Muratorian Fragment or with the decree of the Council of 
Laodicea; and even then, whichever view we took, it would 
be rather arbitrary. The really essential thing both for the 
Old Testament and the New, is the authority with which 
the several books were invested. In the many cases where 
the authorship of the book is known, this authority can be 
traced up beyond the book itself to the person of the writer ; 
and in other cases where the authorship is not known it came 
to be attached to the book by analogy. Whenever a book | 
is regarded as sacred, it is so in some sense and degree from] 
mic, first. “AS it is the opject. of these’ lecturesato trace 
especially this part of the process in question, it will not be 
necessary to dilate further upon it here. 


LECTURE κ᾿ ἢ ἢ 


THE «GENESIS (OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
THE PROPHETIC AND HISTORICAL BOOKS. 


‘If I say, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in 
His name, then there is in mine heart as it were a burning fire shut 
up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot 
contain.’ —/eremtah xx. 9. 

‘The purpose of God according to election. —Romans ix. 11. 


Ar the back of all belief in Revelation or Inspira- 
tion there lies the still larger belief in an active 
Providence, to which the Hebrews gave a more signifi- 
cant and moving name, ‘the living God.’ If we think 
of nature as an ageregate of blind forces, then there 
is clearly no room for communication of any kind 
between God and man. But the moment we assume 
that ‘this universal frame is not without a Mind, the 
moment we assume a real personal Will at the centre 
of all the infinite network of causation, the further 
assumption of some such thing as Revelation and 
its correlative Inspiration becomes easy, natural, and 
probable 1, 

ΠῚ may quote here the words of one who is more of a philosopher 
than I am, and I do so the more gladly as they repair an omission of 
mine by defining the relation of Inspiration to Revelation. ‘The idea 


of a written revelation may be said to be logically involved in the 
notion of a living God. Speech is natural to spirit; and if God is by 


Postulates of Inspiration. 125 


We may treat it, if we will, in the first instance as a 
hypothesis, but it is one of those hypotheses which 
group together and explain such large tracts of pheno- 
mena that with most of us it holds a place among the 
established axioms of thought. Believing that there 
is a God, a Supreme Mind, a Personal Being, endowed 
in the highest perfection with attributes which we are 
compelled to conceive of as like our own, we find no 
difficulty in believing that this great all-ruling central 
Personality seeks to draw to Itself the multitude of 
puny personalities which Its Will has called into exist- 
ence—personalities as it might seem of infinitesimal 
moment when judged by their place in the material 
universe, but every one of which acquires a far higher 
value when we remember that it is made in the image 
of its Creator, that it is spirit face to face with Spirit, 
conscious of its affinity and earnestly desiring to realize 
that affinity so far as it may. There is an upward 
movement in the mind of man which takes away 
any surprise that we might feel at an answering con- 
descension on the part of God. 

We are prepared then to think that the Epicurean 


nature spirit, it will be to Him a matter of nature to reveal Himself. 
But if He speaks to man, it will be through men; and those who 
hear best will be those most possessed of God. This possession is 
termed “inspiration,” God inspires, man reveals: inspiration is the 
process by which God gives; revelation is the mode or form—word, 
character, or institution—in which man embodies what he has re- 
ceived. The terms, though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one 
denoting the process on its inner side, the other on its outer’ (Dr. 
Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 496). The context shows 
that it is as correct to say, ‘God reveals’; but it is through man that 
the revelation takes concrete shape. 


126 77]. [he Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. 


notion of gods holding aloof from men is inadequate ; 
we are prepared to find the finger of God traceable in 
human affairs ; and we ask, if so, what is the method 
of its working ? One feature in that method seems to 
stand out very clearly. It is what St. Paul calls ‘a 
purpose or design, according to election (or selection).’ 
That vast Divine plan of which we see ‘huge cloudy 
symbols’ as it were projected into the universe takes 
a more definite shape as our gaze lingers upon it. We 
observe in it a progression. The light broadens as we 
descend down the ages. But this broadening light 
has not been diffused uniformly over all mankind. It 
has been concentrated or focussed in particular races, 
families, and individuals. Where it has spread in the 
world at large it has spread as a rule from these 
smaller centres. There is an apportionment of parts 
in the mighty drama. On the great world-stage 
different races have different functions. Functions 
which are rudimentary or only slightly developed in 
the one are highly developed in another. It was not 
given to the Semitic race to lay the foundations of 
science. Its achievements were not great in art or 
law and political organization. The branch of it which 
has left the most enduring monuments of itself in these 
departments is the Assyrian, not the Hebrew. But 
for the Hebrew it was reserved beyond all other 
peoples to teach the world what it knows of Religion. 
From that point of view which we have seemed 
justified in taking we shall say that it was the instru- 
ment specially chosen of God for that purpose. We 
do not deny a Divine guiding in other races. Not 


Methods of Inspiration. 127 


wholly in the dark did men of other nationality grope 
after an object of worship and of praise. But it is 
from the Hebrew stock that we have the Bible, and 
the Bible is by general consent the highest expression, 
the most perfect document, of Religion. 

Our survey of the ways of God predisposes us to 
think of the Bible as something more than a purely 
human product, a collection of idle fancies thrown out 
towards an irresponsive heaven. But if it is more than 
this, if it is the record of a real communication from God 
to man, by what processes has that communication been 
made? How has the necessary contact between the 
Spirit of God and the spirit of man been established ? 
What: are 115 extent and limits?) These are ‘the 
questions which we are to set ourselves, so far as our 
analysis will carry us, to answer. And the first part of 
our answer will be that at which I have already hinted, 
that here too there is ‘a purpose or design of God 
according to selection.’ Just as one particular branch 
of one particular stock was chosen to be in a general 
sense the recipient of a clearer revelation than was 
vouchsafed to others, so within that branch certain 
individuals were chosen to have their hearts and 
minds moved in a manner more penetrating and more 
effective than their fellows, with the result that their 
written words convey to us truths about the nature of 
God and His dealings with man which other writings 
do not convey with equal fulness, power, and purity. 
We say that this special moving is due to the action 
upon those hearts and minds of the Holy Spirit. And 
we call that action Inspiration. 


128 77]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


In claiming for the Bible Inspiration we do not 
exclude the possibility of other lower or more partial 
degrees of inspiration in other literatures!. The Spirit 
of God has doubtless touched other hearts and other 
minds (I use the double phrase because in these 
matters thought and emotion are in close union) in 
such a way as to give insight into truth, besides those 
which could claim descent from Abraham. But there 
is a difference. And perhaps our language would be 
most safely guarded if we were to say that when and 
in so far as we speak of the Bible as inspired in a 
sense in which we do not speak of other books as 
inspired, we mean precisely so much as is covered by 
that difference. It may be hard to sum up our defini- 
tion in a single formula, but we mean it to include all 
those concrete points in which as a matter of fact the 
Bible does differ from and does excel all other Sacred 
Books. 


I. I am to speak to-day of a class of Biblical writers 
in which this difference stands out as prominently as in 
any, the Prophets, Perhaps I may go a step further. 
For in truth the prophetic inspiration seems to be a 
type of all inspiration. It is perhaps the one mode 
in which the most distinctive features of Biblical 
Inspiration can be most clearly recognised. 


11 had intended to throw into an Additional Note a summary view 
of the Sacred Books of non-Christian Religions, but this has been so 
excellently done by Bp. Westcott in Zhe Cambridge Companion to the 
Bible, pp. 15-21, that I content myself with referring to what he has 
written. 


The Earlier Prophets. 129 


Not that even the Prophets are a class absolutely by 
themselves. On thecontrary, they are a class to which 
there was a large amount of external analogy. And 
we need to consider the analogies before we can pro- 
perly appreciate the difference. Once again we have to 
look for the ‘ purpose of God according to selection.’ 

Let us begin by taking a section of the history of 
Israel, for which as it happens our documents are 
specially clear and vivid, and evidently animated by a 
fresh and faithful recollection of the events described. 
The Books of Samuel present us with the picture of 
an early stage in the development of Prophecy. Let 
us take it in three of its characteristic manifestations. 
Let us take first the Prophet under that name; then 
the Seer ; then a side on which Priest and Prophet are 
rather closely associated. On each of these sides we 
shall find a state of things which reminds us of the 
institutions of ethnic religions 1. 

We remember the scene in which Saul, seeking for 
his father’s asses, meets the company of prophets 
coming down from the high place of Gibeah with 
psaltery and tabret and pipe and harp before them?; 
and how on another occasion—if indeed it is another 
and tradition has not made two separate incidents 
out of one*’—the same Saul, pursuing a nobler prey, 


? Professor Huxley has devoted a large part of a long essay (255. 
on Controverted Questions, pp. 132-198) to the discussion of these 
analogies, 

2 x Sam. x. 5, 6, 10-13. 

* Both stories are told as explaining the origin of the proverb ‘ 8 
Saul also among the prophets?’ 


K 


130 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


penetrated into the midst of the school of the prophets 
at Ramah, and was caught by their enthusiasm and cast 
off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel, and lay 
down naked all one day and night’. Clearly the exer- 
cise of the prophetic gift was often accompanied by 
strong physical excitement. Music appears to have 
been sometimes used to produce this excitement. For 
when Elisha is called in by the allied kings of Israel, 
Judah and Edom, to save them from the straits of 
their war with Mesha, he must needs have a minstrel 
to play before him and so stir up the prophetic in- 
spiration 3, 

It is true that these instances mark the furthest 
limit which is reached in this direction by Hebrew 
prophecy; and the contrast is far more striking than 
the resemblance when we pass to the priests of Baal 
on Mount Carmel cutting themselves with knives and 
lancets in order to force the god to answer their 
appeal*. Still we must recognise the fact that other 
races and religions have a prophetic order besides 


1 1 Sam. xix. 23, 24. It does not however appear that such a 
condition was in any sense characteristic of the prophets. We know 
that Saul was liable to attacks of madness. 

2 Kings iii. 15. 

5. It is a debated question how far (the lower kinds of) prophecy in 
Israel can rightly be compared with the fakirs and dervishes of the 
East: see on the affirmative side Schultz, Zheo/. d. A. Z. p. 219 f., 
249; Ryle, Canon, p. 39; Wellhausen and Stade as quoted by 
Robertson ; and on the negative, Robertson, Barrd Lectures, Ὁ. 87 fi. ; 
Konig, Ofenbarungsbegriff, pp. 60-64. Kénig strongly opposes the 
view of Kuenen and Wellhausen, accepted in part by Montefiore 
(Zibbert Lectures, p. 76 f.), that Hebrew prophecy was of Canaanite 
origin. 


ee UC 


The Earlier Prophets. 131 


the Hebrew, and that the external phenomena of 
prophecy, though more violent and undisciplined, were 
not wholly dissimilar in kind. 

If we were to inquire into the mental condition of 
the prophet in receiving his revelations we should find 
much the same thing. Dreams are characteristic of 
the early narratives.in the Book of Genesis': their 
significance is assumed in the Book of Judges (Gideon, 
and the soldier's dream prognosticating the success of 
his attack on the Midianites)*; and it is in the form 
of a dream that Samuel receives the warning of the 
calamities which are to befall the house of Eli *. 

Again, it is assumed that the prophetic revelation is 
sometimes made through the medium of trance or 
ecstasy. The typical example of this is Balaam, fall- 
ing down prostrate‘ with the inrush of the Divine 
affiatus, though having his eyes open ὅ. 

In all these respects we seem to be at the level of 
the ideas current among ancient peoples generally. 
This too would be true of the description, so graphic 
in its details, of Samuel as a Seer—the kind of subject 
about which he is consulted, the fee or present which 

1 Gen, xx. 3 ἢ; xxviii, 12 ff.; xxxvii.5 ff.; xii. 1 ff. 

» Judges vii. 13 f. 

3 y Sam. iii. 3 ff. Ata later date however dreams are regarded as 
characteristic of false prophets: 4 Jer. xxiii. 25; Konig, Offendar- 
ungsbegriff, i. το. 

‘Num. xxiv. 4 (0. P. B.). Although Balaam is not strictly 
a prophet of Jehovah he is in this instance regarded as inspired by 
Jehovah. 

δ This again is a condition by no means characteristic of the 
higher prophecy: see Konig, Ofendarungsbegriff, i. 114 ἵν, ii. 48 ἅν; 
Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, Ὁ. 121. 

Kg 


1. ITI. The Prophetic and Hrtstorical Books. 


is usually brought by those who consult him, his 
answers, and the signs which his questioner is to meet 
with. In all this we seem to have a still more homely 
version of the Teiresias or Phineus of Greek legend. 
Lastly, we have at the same period a still more 
elaborate consulting of the oracle associated with the 
priesthood. The full apparatus of such an oracle 
appears in the archaic narrative at the end of the Book 
of Judges of the household of Micah, with his shrine 
or chapel, his image, his ‘ephod’? and teraphim, 
and the Levite to serve them. These things seem 
to be all taken as matters of course, and the Danites 
set great store by the possession of them, although 
it is obtained by theft® In like manner David 
welcomes Abiathar the priest when he comes to 
him ‘with an ephod in his hand’ and makes use 
of him to inquire as to the dangers which threaten 
him and the success of his designs*. Again, we 
do not feel that we are on the exalted platform of 
spiritual religion, but that we are rather moving 
amongst the naive ideas and usages of a primitive 
age. The religion of that age is of course not ex- 


1 1 Sam. ix. 6-8, x. 2 ff. 

* The exact nature of the ‘ Ephod’ is a point still much disputed. 
Not only Koéhler, Kénig and Oehler, but Riehm and Nowack (Ochler, 
Lheol. d. A. T. p. 578, ed. 3), take it to be everywhere a part of the 
priestly dress (as in Ex. xxviii. 6 ff.): on the other hand, Wellhausen 
(Gesch. Isr. pp. 249, 297), Schultz (Adlsest. Theol. p. 135 ἢ,» 
‘keineswegs unwahrscheinlich’), and Montefiore (τόδ. Lect. p. 43) 
take it to be an image. 

® Judges xviii. 5, 10-13, xviii, 14-26. 

* 1 Sam. xxiii. 1-12. 


The Earlier Prophets. 133 


hausted by such ideas and usages. It had its deeper 
side, of which we shall come to speak later, but for the 
present we observe that they do exist, and that they 
form a real link of connexion between the people 
of revelation and its neighbours and contemporary 
peoples over a wide extent of the ancient world. 

When we follow out the fortunes of the prophets we 
find them under Samuel, perhaps for the first time}, 
congregating in settlements, in which their enthusiasm 
is fanned by companionship and sympathy. The next 
occasion where attention is called to these coenobitic 
communities is some two centuries later, in the time of 
Elijah and Elisha. It may be true that there are 
differences in the description of them at the two 
periods, but it seems wrong to press those differences 
to the extent of denying their identity. They are 
sufficiently accounted for by the changes which would 
come simply with lapse of time. Such an institution 
would naturally have fluctuations in its history. The 
communities would die down and revive again. In 
the time of David and his successors we hear more 
of individual prophets than of schools of the prophets. 
Still there are traces even then of prophets as a 
class and of the fellow-feeling existing between its 
members *. 

Prophecy was really a profession; and not only 
through but beyond the days of the Monarchy it was 


1 On the probability of this see Schultz, p. 217 f. 

5.1 Kings xx. 35, ‘a certain man of the sons of the prophets’ (in 
the reign of Ahab); cp. the story of the old prophet of Bethel under 
Jeroboam (1 Kings xiv. 30, 31, &c.). 


134 117]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


a profession strongly manned. In the persecution 
begun by Ahab and Jezebel Obadiah hides no less 
than 400 prophets in a cave. It is clearly a numerous 
body whom Ahab consults before he goes out to 
death. Jeremiah implies a number of prophets both 
in Jerusalem and among the exiles; and Ezekiel also 
evidently speaks of them as forming a considerable 
body 1. 

But where there is a professional class there are 
sure to be professional failings. All members of the 
order would not be equally sincere. There would be 
small natures among them as well as large. They 
would be apt to fall into conventional and unreal 
ways of speaking. They would be under a great 
temptation to adapt their prophecies to their own 
interests and to the wishes of their hearers. Thus 
the halfhearted prophet sinks a step lower still and 
becomes the false prophet. He will ‘speak smooth 
things and prophesy deceits,’ ‘saying, Peace, peace, 
when there is no peace*. Such are ‘blind watch- 
men, ‘dumb dogs, ‘greedy dogs, ‘shepherds that 
cannot understand δ᾽; they have ‘seen vanity and lying 
divination ’; they ‘daub with untempered mortar “ν᾽ 

Will it be thought that in collecting all these par- 
ticulars I hold a brief against the Prophets and desire 
to say all I can in their disparagement ? God forbid. 
I only wish to look the facts full in the face, to blink 
nothing of all that can rightly be said against them, so 

1 Ezek. xiii. 2 ff, xxil. 25, 28, &c. 
ἜΘ xkxX. 105 Jer, Vi Ta; ae: 
Sais; Wily 20; LI. * Ezek. xiii. 6, 10, &c. 


“-ὖὠ 


The Religions of Moab and Israel. 135 


that with a clear conscience we may go on to speak of 
their great and imperishable services, and of the ample 
proof that they really spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost. Once more let us think of the 
‘purpose of God according to selection.’ Not all who 
wore the prophet’s mantle were true prophets; not 
all even of the true prophets always had the fullest 
insight vouchsafed to them. 

But before we finally turn down the page and pass 
over to the more positive side of our inquiry, let us 
first take an unique opportunity that is put in our way 
for forming a comparative estimate of the prophetic 
religion. One of the most notable discoveries of 
recent years was that of the so-called ‘ Moabite stone.’ 
Now this discovery gives us a most unexpected glimpse 
through an absolutely contemporary document of the 
religion of a people closely allied to Israel both in its 
origin and in its civilization. Perhaps the first thing that 
strikes us about it will be the superficial resemblance 
of the Moabite religion to that with which we are 
more familiar. We might almost imagine that we 
were reading, mzztatis mutandis, a passage from the 
Old Testament. It will be remembered that ‘ Che- 
mosh’ is the national god of the Moabites. The 
inscription runs thus :— 

“1 am Mesha son of Chemoshmelek (or Chemosh- 
shillek), King of Moab, the Daibonite. My father 
reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned 
after my father. And I made this high place for 
Chemosh in QRHH, a high place of salvation, 
because he had saved me from all the kings(?), and 


136 77]. [he Prophetic and Historical Books. 


because he let me see my pleasure on all them that 
hated me. Omri was King of Israel, and he afflicted 
Moab for many days, because Chemosh was angry 
with his land. And his son succeeded him; and he 
also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days said he 
thus; but I saw my pleasure on him, and on his 
house, and Israel perished with an everlasting de- 
struction. And Omri took possession of the land of 
Mehedeba, and it (i.e. Israel) dwelt therein, during his 
days, and half his son’s days, forty years; but Che- 
mosh restored it in my days... And the men of Gad 
had dwelt in the land of ‘Ataroth from of old; and 
the King of Israel built for himself ‘Ataroth. And 
I fought against the city, and took it. And I slew all 
the people of the city, a gazingstock unto Chemosh, 
and unto Moab. And I brought back thence the 
altar-hearth of Davdoh(?), and I dragged it before 
Chemosh in Qeriyyoth.... And Chemosh said unto 
me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I went by 
night, and fought against it from the break of dawn 
until noon. And I took it, and slew the whole of it, 
7,000 men . . . and women and [men-servants ?], and 
maid-servants: for I had devoted it to ‘Ashtor- 
Chemosh. And I took thence the vessels of YAHWEH, 
and I dragged them before Chemosh,’ &c.1 

There is real piety in this. The king is not 
strictly monolatrous, for he mentions a compound 
deity, ‘Ashtor-Chemosh,’ as well as ‘Chemosh.’ But 
his worship is practically concentrated on Chemosh, 


1 The translation is taken from Dr. Driver’s LVoles on the Hebrew 
Text of the Books of Samuel, p. \xxxvii. 


The Religions of Moab and Israel. 137 


quite as much we may believe as his opponent 
Ahab’s would be concentrated upon Jehovah. To 
Chemosh he refers all his own successes and those 
of his people. It is the anger of Chemosh which 
caused their subjugation and his favour which gives 
them victory. The destruction of their enemies is 
pleasant to him. Chemosh, or the oracle of Chemosh, 
directs their attack ; and the king shows his gratitude 
by the dedication of offerings which are specially 
acceptable when they are taken from the sanctuaries 
of rival gods. 

In all this there is at least the foundation of a 
religious character. We cannot exactly say that the 
name makes no difference, because the name Jehovah 
(Yauwex) had for the Israelite a rich significance of 
its own. But if we look upon it as merely the symbol 
for God, the Supreme Power, that is what Chemosh 
stood for to the Moabite. And even one of the 
better sort of Israel’s kings could not speak in terms 
of greater loyalty and devotion. It is true that there 
runs through the inscription a vein of vindictiveness 
and cruelty; but to that parallels might be found 
westwards of the Jordan. The doctrine ‘Love your 
enemies’ belongs to the New Testament, and only 
to a few of the most enlightened spirits, like the 
author of the Book of Jonah and of Isaiah xix. 18-25, 
in the Old. 

When however we come to take in other authorities 
the curtain is lifted from other sides of Moabite 
religion which shows what a gulf there was between 
it and the religion of Israel. We remember a fact 


138 71]. [he Prophetic and Historical Books. 


recorded in the Book of Kings of this very same 
Mesha which either falls after the date of the inscrip- 
tion or else is glossed over in it. We remember how 
when Mesha was hard pressed by the Western Powers 
he offered up his own son, who should have reigned 
in his stead, for a burnt-offering upon the wall! It 
was no doubt a desperate case and the last tremendous 
sacrifice of a brave man struggling for liberty. But 
even so it would not have been possible at this time 
to a worshipper of Jehovah. It is perhaps probable 
that the blank which is mercifully left in the story of 
Jephthah’s daughter is to be filled up in a similar 
sense®, But Jephthah was a wild bandit chief in a 
backward region and a lawless age*; and in any case 
all suspicion of human sacrifices in the name of Je- 
hovah had long been left behind. The emphatic 
prohibitions of the Law and the horror expressed 
at the act of Ahaz and Manasseh, who made their 


* 2 Kings iii. 27. 

* This is still contested by Kohler (Lehrbuch d. Bibl. Gesch. 
A. T. ii. 100 ff.) and Kénig (Oehler, Zheol. d. A. 7. Ὁ. 576, ed. 3). 
The main point is that she bewails her virginity (Jud. xi. 37) and not 
her life: it is argued that if dedicated to the service of Jehovah she 
could not marry, and that her life might be commuted for a money- 
payment (Lev. xxvii. 4). But there is an ominous correspondence 
between Jud. xi. 39 and 34. 

3. The case in regard to human sacrifices is tersely summed up by 
Baudissin (Jahve et Moloch, p. 60 f.): populus Israelitarum Jehovam 
colens semper immolationem hominum aversatus est. Solus Jephtha 
filiam immolavit ; sed ts trans Jordanem inter tdololatras vivens Jehovae 
cullum cum cultu gentili commiscuit. Among those who think that 
there are traces of human sacrifice in the Old Testament is Mr. Monte- 
fiore (277bd. Lect. p. 40). 


The Religions of Moab and Israel. 139 


sons to pass through the fire to Molech’, show in 
what estimation they were held. Then we turn to 
the story of Balaam and the scenes in the plains 
of Moab (Num. xxv. 1-9). The best modern opinion 
dissociates these from the worship of Baal-Peor’. 
They seem rather to lead on to the idolatry than to 
be occasioned by it. But there is abundant evidence 
that like abominations were practised in the name of 
religion ὃ, 

It is part of the mystery of things that He who 
made of one blood all the nations of the earth and 
has nowhere left Himself without witness, more or 
less clear, should yet permit evil so to blend itself with 
good even in that which is most sacred. The great 
problem for the student of religions is why the religion 
of Israel alone should be so remarkably free from 
this baser mixture. Why was not the worship of 
Jehovah like the worship of Baal, or Tammuz, or 
Cybele, or Astarte, or Mylitta? Why was it not 
like the worship of a race so nearly akin to Israel 
as the Moabite? The Christian has a simple answer 
ready. He seeks it in that which is the subject of 
these lectures. He believes that there has been a 
special Divine influence at work, not making out of 
Israel an altogether new creation under wholly new 
conditions, but taking the conditions as they were, 
sifting and straining out of them something purer 


Peeve XVII 20, XX. 2: 2 Kings xi: 2, exo: 

* See Baudissin in Herzog, Real-Lncyhl., ii. 33; Dillmann on 
Num. xxv. (p. 169). | 

δ Hos. iv. 14; Jer. ii. 20; 1 Kings xiv. 24, xv. 12; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. 


140 71]. The Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. 


and higher than they could produce of themselves, 
guarding the precious growth from contamination, 
guiding its upward progress, filling it with a vital and 
expansive power which none can give but God. 
And if we are asked to define the measure of this 
special influence, we can see it reflected in that wide 
margin which remains when the common elements of 
the Biblical religion and other religions have been 
subtracted and that which is peculiar to the Bible 
is left. 

There is a ‘purpose of God according to selection’; 
there is an ‘election’ or ‘selection of grace’; and 
the object of that selection was Israel and those who 
take their name from Israel’s Messiah. If a tower 
is built in ascending tiers, those who stand upon the 
lower tiers are yet raised above the ground, and some 
may be raised higher than others, but the full and 
unimpeded view is reserved for those who mount 
upwards to the top. And that is the place destined 
for us if we will but take it. 

We have spoken of the lower levels attained by 
the seers and professional prophets. From the fact 
that these classes are upon a lower level, we may be 
apt to do injustice to them. Samuel told Saul how 
he might find his asses; but he had a higher vocation 
in the world than that. A part of his vocation—no 
small part of it—was to find Saul himself, and so take 
the first step towards welding the loose collection of 
tribes into a nation. Another and even more im- 
portant part lay in the organizing of those ‘schools 
of the prophets’ which contained in themselves the 


The Lower Prophecy. [41 


germs of such great things to come. Partly through 
them and partly in his own person Samuel wrought 
a reformation in the land, the fruit of which was seen 
under Saul’s successor. 

In the case of the prophets it is only natural that 
certain conspicuous figures should stand out and over- 
shadow the rest. We do not know how much of the 
solid basis of Israel's religion may have been due to 
unnamed and unknown workers. The great advances 
no doubt came from the great men, and it was they 
who really deepened the roots of religious conviction. 
But at all times there must be disciples to mediate 
between the leaders and the crowd. It is not enough 
to propound a great truth: it must be spread abroad, 
and carried home, and hardened by iteration. 

Accordingly we can see that even the lower order 
of prophets must have had a very useful function. 
They were a sort of clergy, among whom would be 
found good members and bad; but yet if the average 
of Israel’s religion was better than the average of 
their neighbours’, it was largely their doing. They 
interpreted the great prophets to the multitude, and 
brought them into contact indirectly with many whom 
they could never have reached directly. 

Hence we are not surprised to find that those 
who are called relatively ‘false prophets’ are so not 
because their fundamental ideas are wrong in them- 
selves but because they are wrongly applied', Their 


I cannot go with K6énig who in the work referred to below 
(i.33, &c.) insists upon an absolute opposition between the false prophets 
and the true. It is surely far nearer the mark to say with Montefiore 


42. LIL. [he Prophetic and Historical Books. 


fundamental ideas are really right but they are applied 
in a conventional mechanical way, and it is not seen 
how they are overruled by some deeper and larger 
principle newly enunciated. Thus, for instance, when 
Jeremiah bids the people not to trust ‘in lying words, 
saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the 
Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these!’ buildings, 
the splendid pile which Solomon had raised, it was 
perfectly true that the temple zvas the Lord's and that 
it was under His protection. And when Micah com- 
plains that the prophets divine for money while they 
profess to ‘lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the 
Lord among us? no evil can come upon us?,’ it was 
not to be gainsaid that the Lord was really among 
them: so far, good: but the inference was a wrong 
one, that His hand contained no _ chastisements. 
Nowhere does the antithesis between the lower and 
the higher prophecy come out more clearly than on 
this very point. All this vain confidence is scattered 
to the winds by that magnificent paradox which is the 


(Hibbert Lectures, p. 205 f.): ‘These prophets were not all of them 
either vicious or deceitful. Perhaps now-a-days the tendency is to 
rehabilitate these so-called “‘ false prophets” too easily, for the evidence 
of Ezekiel and Jeremiah cannot be lightly set aside. But there were 
clearly wide gradations of character among them, from the hypo- 
critical charlatan to the honest if deluded enthusiast. God does not 
| act per sal/um in revelation any more than in nature ; lower forms lead 
up to higher, mixed forms to pure; the special influences at work in 
these latter do not involve any breach of continuity. This may also 
be taken as a reply to Kuenen (Prophets and Prophecy in Israel), who 
goes to the opposite extreme of reducing true prophets and false to — 
the same level. 

a er. vil. 4. 2 Micah iii. 11. 


The Higher Prophecy. 143 


main theme of the prophet Amos: ‘You only have 
I known of all the families of the earth: cherefore 
I will punish you for all your iniquities 1.’ 

The lower prophecy had its function and its place; 
but by the Providence of God and by the guidance 
of His Spirit, only the products of the higher pro- 
phecy have come down to us in the shape of authori- 
tative writings. Here again there is a ‘selection.’ 
If we put aside the Book of Daniel, which is not 
exactly a prophetic work in the same sense as the 
rest and which had a different place assigned to it 
in the Jewish Canon, there can be no mistake as to 
the remainder of the Books which fill this section 
of our Bibles. The three so-called Major Prophets 
and twelve Minor are the central representatives of 
Israel’s religion, the culmination of all religion before 
the coming of Christ. 

It is noteworthy how as we rise in the scale of 
prophecy one by one the concomitants of the older 
and lower stages fall away. Ephod and teraphim | 
are consigned to the owls and to the bats. The | 
links which connected prophecy with mantic disappear. 
Every kind of physical stimulus is discarded. The 
prophet no longer seeks to work himself up into a 
state of physical excitement in order to court revela- 
tion. The revelation comes to him whether he will or | 
no. We may almost say of these higher prophets, 


‘Through no disturbance of the soul 
Or strong compunction in [them] wrought, 
But in the quietness of thought’ 


1 Amos iii. 2. 


144 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


they receive the motions of the Spirit. The hand of 
God may be heavy upon them, but yet they do not 
lose their full personality. Instead of being mere 
passive instruments their intelligence is active’. They 
are not a mere flute or lyre for the Spirit to blow 
through; or, if they are, there is a fine quality of tone 
which belongs to the reed or to the strings... The 
impulse is given, and all the faculties and powers of 
the man are stirred to unwonted energy, in which’ how- 
ever, as if to give it the stamp of nature and reality, 
there mingles something of his weakness as well as of 
his strength. 

The prophets are before all things impassioned seers 
of spiritual truth and preachers of religion. They 
are often described as statesmen and as social re- 
formers. Some of them were statesmen, but not all— 
the figures of Isaiah and Jeremiah bulk so large that 
we are apt to take them as a type of the rest, even 
where their circumstances were exceptional. More 
were social reformers’. But in either case it was only 
as it were incidentally in the discharge of a higher 
mission *, The fields of statesmanship and of social 


1 «The lower the grade of prophecy, the more does the ecstatic 
condition become the normal one for inspiration; whereas in the 
higher and riper stages it occurs but seldom—principally in the initial 
revelation which constitutes the prophet’s call’ (Riehm, JZesszanic 
Prophecy, p. 25 E. T.; comp. Duhm, Zheol. d. Proph. p. 86.) 

* The function of the prophets as social reformers has been recog- 
nised by others besides theologians: see J. S. Mill, Representative 
Government, p. 40 ff. (p. 17 popular edition). 

5. The pages (27. Z. pp. 150-153) in which this point is brought out 
by Mr. Montefiore form a striking passage in a striking chapter. 


Lhe Prophetic Inspiration. 145 


reform were but departments in that economy of life 
which took its shape from a true insight into the nature 
and attributes of God and the duty of man. This in- 
sight was granted to the prophet, and he followed it 
out into all its consequences. Especially in the crises 
of the national history he came forward to warn, to 
threaten, and to reassure—not because the nation as 
such was the first thing in his mind, though doubtless 
his kinsmen according to the flesh had a strong hold 
upon him, but because at such times a deeper view 
was obtained into the methods of God's working and 
a stronger incentive was given to the performance of 
human duty. 

Upon what grounds then are we to rest the authority 
with which the prophets spoke—an authority which still 
breathes in their writings? We remember that they 
too were not ‘like the scribes.’ They do not reason, 
but command. They do not conjecture, but announce. 
The moods which they use are the categorical im- 
perative and future. Their insight takes the form of 
intuition and not of inference. Whence did they come 
to have these characteristics ? What is it that lies in 
the background of their teaching? If we listen to 
them they will tell us. With one consent they would 
say that the thoughts which arose in their hearts and 


the words which arose to their lips were put there | 


by God. 

But this only throws us back upon the further 
question, which forms the gist of the problem at the 
present day, What guarantees have we that they were 
not mistaken? How do we know that they are not 

i 


Vv 


146 77]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


projecting their own thoughts outside themselves and 
ascribing them to an external cause? ‘This is the 
heart of the matter. And the one point on which we 
must firmly take our stand is the belief that in this 
contention of theirs the prophets were not mistaken, 
that their utterances had a cause outside themselves, 
a real objective cause, not to be confused with any 
mental process of their own. 

This I think is enough. We are not called upon to 
formulate a theory, for which the data are perhaps in- 
sufficient, as to the exact mode in which God conveyed 
His Will to them. In the most important work on 
the subject before us, a work of much learning and 
ability and starting from critical premises though 
perhaps applying them somewhat wilfully, it is con- 
tended that when the prophets say ‘God spake’ to 
them, what is meant is a literal and actual voice audible 
to the bodily ear, and when they say ‘ They saw,’ what 
is meant is an actual literal sight presented to the 
waking eye’. I do not think that we are compelled to 
go so far as this. There is a great tendency in an age 
and in a state of civilization like that to which the 
prophets belonged to express the higher and more 
abstract processes of the human mind in terms of the 
lower and more concrete. The prophets chose the 
simplest expressions they could find, expressions which 
would convey the desired meaning so far as it could 
be apprehended to their contemporaries, but expres- 


1 Konig, Ofenbarungsbegriff d. A. T. ii. 9 ff., 142 ff. In criticism 
of this view see especially Riehm, Messianic Prophecy, p. 29 ff. 
Bvt. 


The Prophetic Inspiration. 147 


sions which are not intended to be judged from the 
standpoint of an advanced psychology, and which if 
they are so judged would certainly be pronounced in- 
adequate. But the essence of them consists in this, 
that the words which they repeat and the visions of 
revelation which they describe are not merely their 
own inventions, but are suggested and brought home 
to them from without in such a way that they were 
irresistibly attributed to God and given out as coming 
from Him. We believe that they were right, and we 
do so on a number of grounds which seem to us 
exceedingly strong. 

We believe it on the strength (1) of the glimpses 
which the prophets give us into their own conscious- 
ness on the subject ; (2) of the universal belief of their 
contemporaries ; (3) of the extraordinary unanimity of 
their testimony ; (4) of the difficulty of accounting for 
it in any other way; (5) of the character of the teach- 
ing in which this Divine prompting and suggestion 
results—a character which is not only not unworthy 
but most worthy of its source. 

(1) We may premise, in speaking of the witness 
which the prophets bear to themselves, that they are 
persons whose word may well be believed. They are 
persons as little likely to deceive as to be deceived. 
Their writings bear the stamp of singleminded veracity, 
and in the way in which they grapple with the evils 
around them they come before us as the wisest and 
sanest of their generation. But the case is one where 
considerations of this kind hardly need to be intro- 
duced; because we have not to do with a claim 

i 2 


48. LL, The Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. 


which is denied and has to be made good, but with 
one which is generally acquiesced in and the references 
to which come in quite incidentally as if it were taken 
for granted. The sincerity of the prophets’ own belief 
cannot be called in question ; and it will be allowed 
that in common matters they are competent witnesses ; 
the only question possible is whether they have 
analysed their consciousness correctly. 

But in regard to this we must observe that they 
have at least analysed it very strictly. It is remark- 
able what a clear and firm distinction they draw 
throughout between what comes from God and what 
comes from themselves!. There are in their minds 
two trains of thought running parallel to each other, 
and they never seem to have the slightest hesitation 
as to which facts shall be referred to the one and 
which to the other. It is the characteristic of the false 
prophets to confuse the deceits of their own heart 
with the word of the Lord?, The true prophet is 
never in any doubt. He may have to wait some 
time before a revelation comes to him—Jeremiah on 
one occasion waits ten days—but he does not antici- 

1 Note (e.g.) in this connexion the dialogues which the prophets 
are represented as holding with the Almighty and the way in which 
they describe their own feelings: Amos vii. 2-9, 15, viii. τ, 2; Micah 
vii. I-10, 18-20; Isaiah vi. 5-12, XVi. Q—-II, XXI. 2-10, XXil. 4-14, 
XXV. I-5, xxvi, 8-18, xxix. I1, 12, xl. 6, xlix. 3-6, 1. 4-9, Ixiv. 6-12; 
Jeremiah i. 6-14, iv. 10, 19-21, V. 3-6, X. 19-25, ΧΙΪ, I-6, Xiv. 7-9, 
13-14, 18-22, xv. 10-21, xvii. 15-18, xviii. 18-23, xx. 7-18, Xxxil. 
16-25, &c. It is probable that some of the chapters referred to are 
not by the authors whose names they bear (see below, p. 240 f.); but 


that would only enlarge the range of testimony. 
2 Jer, σιν. 24. 


The Prophetic Inspiration. 149 


pate the desired moment!. The prophets always 
know and very frequently set down the precise time 
when the word of the Lord ‘came to them.’ They 
are not endowed with any standing and permanent 
inspiration, but a special access of the Divine gift is 
vouchsafed to them for special purposes. 

(2) Nor is it as if they were conscious of this gift 
only within themselves; its presence is wzzversally 
recognised by their contemporaries. Observe for in- - 
stance the position which Isaiah holds both before 
court and people. The message of the prophet may 
be unwelcome; and in bad times he may meet with 
opposition from false prophets or from worldly coun- 
sellors who are determined to go their own way, and 
who think by suppressing the messenger to evade the 
message”; but his mission from God is not questioned. 
And just as men were aware when they had a prophet 
among them, so also they were aware when there was 
no prophet: ‘We see not our signs: there is no more 
any prophet; neither is there among us any that 
knoweth how long’. And we have already seen 
how the Jews looked upon the cessation of prophecy 
as having taken place at a certain time, which the 
later writers regarded as regulating the limits of the 
Canon *. 

(3) Another proof that the prophets were not the 
victims of hallucination is supplied by ¢he extra- 
ordinary consistency of ther language in regard to them- 


jer. Kit, 7 * Amos vii. 10-13 ; Jer. Xxxviii. 6. 
3 Psalm Ixxiv. 9. 
* 1 Macc. ix. 27; Josephc. Afton. i.:85 ‘sup. ps 111. 


150 LIT, The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


selves and their mission. If one prophet here and 
another there had supposed themselves to be sent 
by God and to have words put in their mouths 
by Him, it would not have been so surprising. But 
as it is we find the whole line of prophets, stretching 
over a succession of centuries, from Amos, from 
Nathan, from Samuel, from Moses, to Malachi, all 
make the same assumption. The formulae which 
they use are the same: ‘Thus saith the Lord, ‘The 
word of the Lord came,’ ‘Hear ye the word of the 
Lord.” Such an identity of language implies an 
identity of psychological fact behind it; but, if an 
individual may be subject to delusions, it is another 
thing to say that a class so long extended could be 
subject to them—and to delusions with so much of 
method about them. 

From this group of arguments which turn ulti- 
mately upon the consciousness of the prophets we 
pass (4) to another group which arise from the diffi- 
culty of accounting for that consciousness on any other 
hypothesis than its truth. First there are the cir- 
cumstances of the call of the prophets. We never 
hear of a prophet volunteering for his mission. It 
is laid upon them as a necessity from which they 
struggle to escape in vain. Moses pleads that he 
is ‘slow of speech and of a slow tongue. Isaiah 
tells us how he thought himself undone because he 
Was a man of unclean lips and he dwelt among a 
people of unclean lips. Jeremiah shrinks back like 
a child when the call comes to him. He curses 
the day on which he was born. Ezekiel has 


The Prophetic Inspiration. 151 


full warning of the kind of reception he will meet 
with: it will be as though briers and thorns were 
with him and he dwelt among scorpions. Amos 
had had no preparation for his mission: he was 
neither a prophet nor a member of any prophetic 
guild, but ‘a herdman and a dresser of sycomore 
trees!’ So far from circumstances leading up to 
the call of the prophets it was just the opposite. 
And when the prophet came forward to speak, in 
most cases it was with some paradox which seemed 
rather to traverse than to follow from the teaching 
of his predecessors *. 

Again, if we take a wider range and ask, Whence 
did the prophets of Israel get this doctrine of theirs? 
we cannot answer, as some have attempted to do, 
that it was from any special aptitude either of the 
Semitic race in general or of the Hebrew race in 
particular. It is sufficient refutation of this to point 
to the kindred nations Moab and Ammon. Here we 
see the picture of what Israel and Israel's leaders 
and teachers would have been without any Divine 
intervention. Or if we look at Israel itself, we observe 
with what constant struggle and effort, how fitfully 
and uncertainly, the people were kept up even to the 
lower level of their own Monotheism. It is plain 
enough that their creed was no natural product, but 
rather one which went against nature; bestowed from 
without, and not generated from within. 

" bP xod. iv. £0; Isa: Vl. 5, xx. Τῇ: Jer. 1 Ὁ» zek i. 65-Amos 
vii. 14. 

pemos ΗΠ ΣΟΥ Τὸ W./20/t..) Isde 1. 12 ah Jer, vite 4, &c. 


152 711]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. 


And yet once more, if we open out our horizon 
wider still, if we weigh the prophets’ work by the 
standard not of any special aptitudes of race but of 
the common aptitudes of men, we are obliged to con- 
fess that their teaching is not such as could have been 
arrived at by any of the ordinary methods current 
then or even by any of those which are current now. 
A perfectly just and holy and good God is not the 
result of any induction. The presence of evil in the 
world, of pain and sorrow and sin, prevents us from 
arguing directly from the character of the creation 
to the character of the Creator. It is a bold and 
masterful solution to say that there is evil in the 
world, and yet that God is good—perfectly good, and 
that if we hold fast to the belief in His goodness, it 
will verify itself to us in spite of all appearances to 
the contrary. But such a belief could not be given 
by any of the methods of science, ancient or modern. 
It is a splendid venture of faith, a far-darting gleam 
of intuition, shot through the gloom and tangle of 
existence, we may most surely believe at His instance 
and motion, Whom by His own help alone we can 
at all adequately search out and know. 

(5) This is what makes the teaching of the prophets 
so infinitely precious to us and séamps ἐξ with undying 
authority, ‘Ne want it as much to-day as ever it has 
been wanted in the past’. It is often assumed that 


* M. James Darmesteter has recently published an enthusiastic 
essay on the value of Hebrew Prophecy in the immediate present and 
future (Les Prophétes d'Israél, Paris, 1892). Its burden may be 
summed up in few words. ‘Le réle et la mission du prophétisme . . . 


The Prophetic Inspiration. 153 


Christianity has superseded the teaching of the Old 
Testament; but we really need the Old Testament to 
correct, I do not say Christianity itself, but the very 
imperfect conceptions which we are apt to form of it. 
It was an inevitable consequence of the Incarnation 
and of the contact of the Gospel with the Greek mind 
that recourse should be had to metaphysics. The 
Church of the early centuries employed the best 
metaphysics to which it had access; and it employed 
them upon the whole wisely and well. But in order 
to moralize our metaphysics, to fill them with warmth 
and emotion, we need to go back to the Old Testa- 
ment and to that part of the New which is not 
Greek but Hebrew. Again, how much richer 
and deeper is the old prophetic idea of the 
‘living God’ than our modern terminology, the Ab- 
solute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned, the First 
Cause, or than the eighteenth-century notion of the 
Moral Governor, which has indeed a certain gravity 
when it is used as Bishop Butler was wont to use it, 
but is bare and arid and comprehends but little of 
the attributes of the Father of spirits. ‘Jehovah, 
Jehovah, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow 


c'est de vivifier les deux religions de fait qui aujourd’hui se disputent 
la France et demain se la partageront en paix, celle de la science et 
celle du Christ... . Seul il peut rendre ἃ I’Eglise le souffle d’avenir, en 
lui rendant le sens des formules d’ow elle est sortie: et seul il peut 
donner ἃ la science la puissance d’expression morale qui lui manque’ 
(pp. xiii. f.). 

1 This may, I hope, be taken to represent the measure of truth in 
the antithesis, which Matthew Arnold was so fond of drawing betweer 
Hellenism and Hebraism. 


154 71]. The Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. 


to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping 
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and trans- 
gression and sin; and that will by no means clear 
’  *Thus saith the high and lofty One 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell 
in the high and holy place, with him also that is of 
a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of 
the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite 
one. ‘For Thou art our Father, though Abraham 
knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: 


the guilty. 


Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer 
from everlasting is Thy name.’ ‘Surely He hath 
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did 
esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was 
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our 
peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are 
healed'.’ Forgive me for reminding you by one or 
two such familiar examples what wonderful things 
there are in the writings of the prophets?. The last 
passage recalls to us the part which they played in 
drawing πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως, ‘by divers portions 
and in divers manners,’ that unimaginable portrait 
which we have seen transferred from heaven to earth 
and realized in Christ. 

Let us stand back for a moment and without losing 
ourselves in details or remembering more than the 
salient features which their names bring back to us, let 

* Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7 (a prophetical passage) ; Isa. Ivii. 15 ; Ixili. 16; 


lili. 4, δ. 


* See Additional Note A: Modern Prophets. 


Hebrew Historians. 155 


us think what such names as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, 
Jeremiah mean. Looking at them so, and thinking 
also of the place which they have held in history 
and the spiritual nutriment which their writings have 
afforded to generation upon generation of the best of 
earth’s children, can we be doing wrong if we endorse 
the claim which they make, in no spirit of boastfulness 
or self-seeking, to be chosen vessels for receiving and 
transmitting the revealed Will of God ? 


II. It is well known that the Jews classed the 
Historical Books of the Old Testament among ‘the 
Prophets.’ The Books as they stand in our Bibles (with 
the exception of Ruth) from Joshua to the end of Kings 
are called by them the Former Prophets, in contra- 
distinction from the Latter Prophets, to whom we 
as a rule confine the name. The idea was that the 
history of each successive generation was written by a 
contemporary prophet; and as the prophetic literature 
in the narrower sense does not begin until the reign of 
Jeroboam II in Israel and Uzziah in Judah, the narra- 
tives of whose reigns fall in the second half of the 
Second Book of Kings, it was natural that the great 
bulk of the historical writings (Joshua—2 Kings xiv.) 
should be roughly described as the work of the older 
prophets. 

There was a large element of truth in this Jewish 
tradition. The older historical writing was all of it 
the work of prophets. We may even go back beyond 
the Book of Joshua. The historical portions of the 
Pentateuch were also as we shall see very largely 


156 Ill. The Historical Books. 


composed by prophets. And it is true that much of 
this historical activity was contemporary. I do not 
mean that the Historical Books as we now have them 
were written 2472 passu with the events, or were 
even in all cases based directly upon works so written. 
The character of these books in their different parts 
varies greatly: sometimes the narratives of which they 
are made up are nearer to the events, and sometimes 
they are more remote from them. But at least from 
the time of David onwards there must have been a 
very fairly continuous historical literature upon which 
our present histories are based, though in varying pro- 
portions, and in different degrees of directness. 

A wrong impression is apt to be conveyed in regard 
to these Hebrew histories from the associations with 
which we come to them derived from modern historical 
writing or from the classical historians of Greece and 
Rome. 

In the first place, it must be remembered that Hebrew 
history was as a rule, and especially for the earlier 
periods, anonymous. The writers had not a literary 
object in the sense of seeking any fame or reputation for 
themselves. Their object was either simplyto record the 
facts, or else more often to draw a religious lesson from 
the facts. They might at times wish to advance the 
interests of a particular class or order; but all per- 
sonal interests, and in particular interests connected 
with literary composition, were not only in the back- 
ground, but were absolutely non-existent. _No Hebrew 
historian thought either of himself or of his prede- 
cessors as possessing a right of property in their work. 


Characteristics of Hebrew Historians. τ51] 


He was just as ready to have the products of his pen 
used by others as he was to use himself the stores 
which had come down to him. 

Secondly, we must remember that the Hebrew his- 
torians were very numerous. The writing of history 
was one of the functions of the prophetic order, and 
that order was recruited by a constant succession from 
Samuel to Malachi. It would of course be utterly mis- 
leading in speaking of the prophets to think only of the 
Four Prophets the Greater, and Twelve Prophets the 
Less, in our Bibles. As I have already said, the 
prophets were the clergy of their time, and although of 
course only a small proportion of them took up the 
writing of history, still the number who did so from 
time to time cannot have been inconsiderable. At 
a later date the priests also took up the work of 
history-writing. But they too wrote under precisely 
the same conditions: the work is carried on not so 
much by single individuals as by successions of 
individuals partly going over old ground and partly 
entering upon new. 

Lastly, we have to remember that their writings did 
not take the form of printed books. They were not 
produced in wholesale editions, but by single copies at 
atime. And the writer of each new copy would not 
consider himself slavishly bound to the text of his pre- 
decessor. He would be something between a scribe 
and an author or editor. He was bound by no rules; 
and he would either simply transcribe or add and sub- 
tract as he felt moved to do at the moment. Both 
his additions and subtractions would be due to different 


158 11. The Historical Books. 


motives—sometimes to the use of other authorities, 
and sometimes to the particular religious interest which 
was dominant with him in writing. 

The best analogy for Hebrew historical writing 
would be not our modern literary histories or the 
works of ancients like Tacitus or Thucydides, but the 
monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages. What we 
have to think of is works existing in few copies, and 
those copies exposed to many mischances from the 
violent and turbulent character of the times; passing 
often from hand to hand and enriched on the way by 
insertions and annctations; so that it would be the ex- 
ception for any of them exactly to reproduce the original 
from which it was copied. This would all be done in 
perfectly good faith; and although the result as it has 
come down to us may seem rather complicated, it 
is really simple in the way in which it has come about, 
and indeed natural and inevitable. 

Here it is that we have to dismiss our modern asso- 
ciations, which are not at all relevant to the circum- 
stances. A prejudice may easily be created which 
ought not to exist. The prolonged attention which 
has been given to the Historical Books of the Old 
Testament and the skill of a series of investigators 
have succeeded to a very great extent in separating 
the layers of gradual accretion which have gone to 
make the books which we now possess what they are. 
But it must be confessed that the nomenclature which 
they have been compelled to use has about it some- 
thing rather repellent—‘first J ehovist,’ ‘second J ehovist,’ 
‘third Jehovist,’ ‘first Elohist,’ ‘second Elohist,’ ‘ first 


Characteristics of Hebrew Hrstorians. 159 


redactor, ‘second redactor, ‘Deuteronomistic redactor,’ 
‘priestly redactor,’ ‘interpolator’ here and ‘ interpo- 
lator’ there. All this has a formidable sound; and 
with us it would convey the idea of something not 
quite honest as well. We naturally think of a writer 
partly passing off his predecessors’ work as his own and 
partly tampering with it not very ingenuously. Any 
such idea must be dismissed. What it really means is 
only that as one hand laid down the pen, another— 
and in most cases a kindred and friendly hand—took 
1 The following is the critical apparatus to the Pentateuch extracted 
from Cornill’s £7lectung, which however, it should be said, goes 
perhaps to the furthest limits which have as yet been reached in this 
direction :— 
J.J’ J® . successive contributors to the Jehovistic document. 
FE! EF? . , successive contributors to the Elohistic document. 


JE. . combination of J group with E group. 
DD} Dr. the author of ‘Urdeuteronomium,’ with two later re- 
dactors. 


JED. . combination of JE with Deuteronomy. 

P P! P? Px the author of the Priestly Code with its later additions 
(Px==P*)P* ΤῸ: &c.). 

Rj. . the editor who combines J and E. 

Rd, Rd? . two authors or editors, the first of whom combines JE 
with P, contributes to Joshua and Judges, and writes 
most of Kings, while the second is a later redactor of 
that work. 

Rp. . . the editor who combines JED with P. 

It will be understood that the discrimination of so many different 
hands represents an enormous amount of labour, which will be apt to 
seem wasted. It may perhaps be wasted; it may perhaps carry 
refinement beyond the point which the evidence justifies; it may 
apply an unreal standard. But the antecedent improbability seems 
to be a good deal lessened by the considerations in the text. In the 
end the specialists must decide; and our own scholars may be trusted 
to decide judiciously, 


160 Ill. The Historical Books. 


it up, each working after a manner which had become 
traditional. 


But another question will be asked, and it is my 
duty to attempt to answer it. Granting that no blame 
attaches to these successive narrators, can we claim for 
them any special inspiration? And if so, where does 
it reside? It is important to bear in mind the double 
function which belongs to every historian. He has 
not only to narrate events but to interpret them. In 
the histories of the Bible the first of these functions 
was as a rule subordinate to the second, and a dif- 
ferent measure has to be applied to it at different 
periods, and according as it is regarded from different 
aspects. 

In the art of narrative as such the Hebrew historian 
has no superior. Nothing can exceed the simple 
dignity of his style or the sureness of touch with 
which he lays his finger on the springs of human 
emotion. Stories like those of Joseph or the revolt 
of Absalom are unsurpassed for beauty and pathos; 
the scenes of Elijah on Carmel and in the wilderness 
are solemn and moving in the highest degree. Among 
the ancients Herodotus probably comes nearest. 
Among the moderns those are best who, like our 
own Bunyan, conform most closely to the Biblical 
model. 

It is otherwise when we turn from the form of the 
narrative to its substance. Here there is a great 
variety, corresponding to the different degrees of 
nearness in which the historian stands to the events. 


Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. τόι 


Here too we may say that the Hebrew historian at 
his best is very good indeed. In a story like that 
of Absalom we feel that we are being told the simple 
naked truth with the utmost clearness and impressive- 
ness. The familiar tale awakes in us at this day 
the very same emotions which the scenes themselves 
awoke among those who witnessed them. The reason 
is that the document on which this part of the narra- 
tive is based is an excellent one, a pure transcript 
of nature, drawn from fresh and vivid recollection. 
We cannot say as much for the story of Joseph, 
although that is equally lifelike, because there is not 
the same guarantee that the writer is near his subject. 
The beauty and delicacy of characterization may be 
due to the moulding influence of imagination, acting 
gradually upon traditional material. 


On all this side of history-writing it is difficult to | 


claim for the Biblical historians inspiration in the sense 
of praeternatural exemption from error. The His- 
torical Books of the Old Testament have now for 
some time been examined with complete candour and 
very closely. A final result may not have been 
obtained in all cases, but still the broad outlines may 
be regarded as fairly well ascertained. The different 
sources have been discriminated, at least with an 
approximate degree of accuracy, and it is possible to 
tell within rough limits in what sort of relation the 
record stands to the facts, where the interval is great 
and where it is small, and what sort of disturbing 
influences are likely to have intervened. 

If we take the results as we find them without any 

M 


162 Ill. The Historical Books. 


straining, it cannot be said that there is evidence in 
the case of the Biblical Histories of the suspension of 
ordinary psychological laws. An oral tradition which 
has travelled over several centuries cannot be trusted 
in the same way as the testimony of eyewitnesses and 
contemporaries. And it would be hard to deny that 
there are portions of the history of Israel which have 
no better foundation. Then again although we may 
acquit the Hebrew historian of many of the dis- 
torting influences to which his modern successors are 
liable, still it must in strict justice be allowed that 
he has some distorting influences of his own. If he is 
free from literary ambitions and egotisms, he is not 
wholly free from the tendency to idealize and glorify 
institutions of which he is proud, or to read back into 
the past the conditions with which he is familiar in 
the present. To escape such tendencies would at the 
date and under the circumstances under which some 
of the Hebrew historians wrote have been something 
more than human, and however willing we may be to 
admit supernatural interference where the proof is 
sufficient the proof on this side of the facts is wanting. 
Rather, when candidly considered, the facts really tell 
the other way. Itis not in this direction that we are 
to look for the signs of inspiration. 

For these we must turn to another quarter. We 
have said that the duty of the historian is not only 
to narrate but to interpret. It was this further duty 
of which the Hebrew historians were most keenly 
conscious and which brought them in contact with the 
spirit of Revelation. History was not with them a series 


Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. — 163 


of disconnected annals of wars and dynasties. It was 
rather a gradual unfolding of the kingdom of God upon 
earth, or in other words of ‘the purpose of God accord- 
ing to selection,’ At two periods in particular this 
conception was very dominant. One was under the 
influence of the Book of Deuteronomy in the years 
which followed the publication of that book and among 
the schools by which it was most closely studied. The 
other was at the end of the Exile and immediately after 
the Restoration’. These were the periods during which 
the Historical Books of the Old Testament received 
their present shape. But it would be a mistake to 
regard the fundamental conception as present in those 
periods alone. It really stretches over the whole 
of the ground which Hebrew history-writing covers. 
Already as far back as the Jehovist we find a fully 
developed consciousness that the people to which 
he belonged and the beginning of which he was 
describing was one in which all the nations of the 
earth were to be blessed, ‘Think for a moment of 
the significance of that single fact. It contains in 
itself implicitly if not explicitly the germs of Chris- 
tianity. What other nation ever had so high a sense 
of its vocation ? What other nation ever retained such 
-a sense on so slender a thread of national great- 
ness and prosperity? How did it survive fire and 
water, the extinction not only of national liberties but 
as it seemed of national existence ? 


1 For some instructive remarks on the characteristics οἱ these two 
periods see Montefiore, Wzdbert Lectures, pp. 231-234, 315 ff., and on 
the conception of history in the Books of Chronicles, pp. 445-449. 

M 2 


164 Ill. The Historical Books. 


We can see now why it was that the prophets of 
Israel were also its historians. It was in them that 
this consciousness of the true vocation of Israel burned 
most brightly. It was they who were commissioned 
to cherish and educate it and to fill it with contents of 
ever-increasing richness and fulness. 

Hence we must not be surprised if we do not 
always find the prophetic historians upon the same or 
upon the highest level. In this as in other things 
Revelation proceeds by way of growth, by develop- 
ment, by a gradual opening of the eyes to higher 
ranges of truth. To reach the highest summits of all 
we must go not to the Former Prophets but to the 
Latter, not to Genesis and Exodus or to the Books of 
Samuel and Kings, or even to those of Ezra and 
Nehemiah, but to Jeremiah and Second Isaiah, to the 
prophecy of the New Covenant and to the doctrine 
of the Suffering Servant. 

And yet, as in the body those members ‘ which 
seem to be more feeble are necessary, and our un- 
comely parts have more abundant comeliness,’ so also 
in Revelation: that also is an organism, a connected 
and coherent structure, fitly joined and compacted 
together. A continuity runs through it all, and even 
that which seems to be lower is necessary as a 
stepping-stone to the higher. Therefore it is 
wrong to speak in terms of disparagement even of 
that which seems to be humblest. The moral which 
holds good for the life of the individual holds good 
also on the grandest scale of the fulfilment of the 
Divine purpose. 


Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. τόδ 


‘Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, “A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid.” ’ 


There are vessels of greater honour and vessels of 
lesser honour ; there are riper products and products 
less ripe; but all alike have their place in the economy 
of Revelation. 


166 Note to Lecture 717. 


NOTE A. 
Modern Prophets. 


ONE sometimes sees an estimate of certain modern writers 
which is so appreciative and indulgent as to place them prac- 
tically on a level with the Hebrew prophets. The chief names 
which would be mentioned in such a connexion in this country 
are those of Carlyle, Ruskin, Browning, and Tennyson. It 
would seem however in regard to these writers as if one of 
two things were true. Either what they say is based funda- 
mentally on the Christian Revelation, and their contribution 
to literature consists in restating portions of that revelation, 
clearing them from misunderstanding and objections, and 
applying them to modern life; or else it embodies individual 
views of the writer. This second element is of very doubtful 
value. It would be most conspicuous in the writings of 
Carlyle and Ruskin. As to the former I would not deny 
that some of the truths of Christian morals—hardly the most 
recondite—are urged by him with real force and passion ; 
but even these are wrapped up in an amount of rhetorical 
declamation which has already begun to pall upon the public 
taste, and by the side of them is much that is positively false 
and misleading. The Gospel of the Strong Man is for instance 
a strange kind of revelation. And in regard to the other 
there is so much that is either overstrained or simply eccentric 
and erratic that a special gift of discernment is necessary to 
separate the wheat from the chaff. Ruskin probably ap- 
proaches most nearly to the prophet when he least supposes 
himself to do so. 

All the four writers who have been named possess real 
charismata in different degrees of purity and strength, but to 


Note A. 167 


compare them with the prophets and apostles shows only 
defective criticism on the one hand and imperfect appre- 
hension on the other. On the greatest points of all, those 
which relate to the character and attributes of God, the 
Bible is not only supreme but unique. The believer in the 
Bible has no need to exaggerate: he has but to state the 
facts as they really are, 


LEGIURE: Th 


DHE ‘GENESIS. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
THE LAW AND THE HAGIOGRAPHA., 


‘What great nation is there that hath a god so nigh unto them as 
the Lord our God is whensoever we call upon Him? And what 
great nation is there, that hath statutes and judgements so righteous 
as all this law, which I set before you this day ?’—Deuteronomy iv. 
7, 8. 


‘Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the 
Lord would put His Spirit upon them !’—Wumdlers xi. 29. 


I. To the Jews the one primary revelation was 
the Law; all else was secondary. Even as far back 
as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, the Law as given by 
Moses was identified with Wisdom itself!. This idea 
was developed by the Rabbis, who regarded the Law 
as existing before the Creation, and saw in it the 
plan on which God had made the worlds?. No 
second revelation like it was possible. It had ex- 
hausted all the revelation which God could give to 
man. ‘The passage in Deuteronomy (xxx. 12), ‘It is 
not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go 
up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may 
hear it and do it?’ which St. Paul used to illustrate 


* Ecclus, xxiv. 23 ; of: ver, 1 fi; 
2. Weber, Sys/em d. alisynagog. Theologie, p. 14. 


Estimate of the Law. 169 


the nearness of the Gospel, was interpreted by the 
Jews to mean that the Law had been given once for 
all, and that there was no other revelation left in 
heaven like itt. If Israel had only kept the Law 
there would have been no need for Prophets or 
Flagiographa®, None of the other books could com- 
pare in sanetity with the Law. It was not permitted 
to sell a copy of the Law and buy the other books 
with the price*. The usage of the Rabbis is not 
constant: although the other books are often quoted 
as Scripture, they are also frequently treated as on 
the same footing with the Kabbala or traditions of 
fieiseribes 3. 

The same estimate prevailed at Alexandria as 
in Palestine. More than two-thirds of the extant 
writings of Philo are occupied with themes taken 
from the Pentateuch. According to him, Moses 
combined in his own person the four most perfect 
gifts possible to man, those of king, lawgiver, priest, 
and prophet. He is the greatest of all lawgivers, 
whose laws, unlike those of others which are being 
constantly overturned, will last as long as the sun and 
moon endure, as they have lasted unshaken through 
all the vicissitudes of Jewish history °. 

We have seen that the Law was the first of the 


? Wildeboer, Hef Ontstaan, &c., p. 83. 

2 bid. 

® Robertson Smith, O. 7. 7. C. p. 161, ed. 2. 

* Wildeboer, p. 83 f.; Zunz, Die gottesdienstl. Vortriége d. Juden, 
pe 106 π., ed. 2. 

ὁ Vit. Mos. iii, 23, ii. 3 (Mang. ii. 163, 136); ο΄ Drummond, PAzlo 
Judacus, i. 15. 


170 LV. The Law and the Hagtographa. 


three divisions of the Old Testament to attain to 
what we should call canonical authority; and it so 
overshadowed the other divisions that even in the 
New Testament the one name ‘ Law’ is used to cover 
the rest. Even our Lord, as reported to us, so far 
accepts the current formulas as to apply the term 
‘Law’ both to Prophetical Books and Psalms. 

And yet Christianity was soon to work a change 
in this estimate of the Law. To the Christian the 
Old Testament was of value in proportion as it tes- 
tified to Christ. Hence we find that the books most 
largely quoted were Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, 
and Psalms. And the Book of Genesis was quoted, 
not as part of the Law, but as the record of an older 
and in some ways higher dispensation, inasmuch as it 
linked on more immediately and naturally to the age 
of the Messiah *; while from Deuteronomy just those 
parts were quoted which were least legal®, Our 
Lord did not in set terms repeal the Law, though 
He showed that it was to be superseded by prin- 
ciples of greater simplicity and efficacy. And what 
He taught implicitly, St. Stephen and St. Paul taught 
explicitly. That Christ is the end of the Law as a 
means of making men righteous, that other and 
more powerful influences must be brought to bear 
if the world is to be regenerated, is the burden of 
the great Apostle. He succeeded beyond all expec- 


1 The clear cases are St. John x. :345; xi) 343.) Xv. 125 1 Con 
XIV. 21. 

3 Rom. iv. 13, 14, Gal. iii, 17,78. 

Lg. Deut. Vi. 4, 5 > ΧΙ ΤῸ, ΟΣ ἘΥΣ 1511. 


Estimate of the Law. 171 


tation in effecting the change, less perhaps through 
any theoretic teaching, which was but imperfectly ap- 
prehended, than through the force of circumstances. 
The Gentile converts far outnumbered the Jewish, 
and it was natural that the Law should have but 
a slight hold upon them. The different parts of 
the Old Testament were treated as more upon an 
equality: or rather, by a silent process, Prophecy 
virtually took the place of Law, and it was just the 
prophetic element in the Pentateuch and the other 
books that came to be of most importance. 

Now in these latter days a like tendency is dis- 
cernible. The Prophets are once more placed before 
the Law, but in a different sense and on different 
grounds. It is no longer the predictive side of pro- 
phecy which is prominent. And the reasons which 
have brought the Prophetical Books once more to the 
front are in the first instance critical rather than doc- 
trinal. The world does right to insist on having docu- 
ments of unquestioned genuineness and authenticity. 
And such the Prophetical Books undoubtedly are. 
It is probable that in some cases, from causes which 
are little more than accidental, the works of two or 
more prophets may have come down to us under a 
single name, but that hardly detracts at all from their 
value. They are no less authentic as an expression 
of the prophetic spirit, and the name is but a small 
matter. 

It is otherwise with a book which is either directly 
historical or has a historical background. There 
everything depends upon the date and the relation 


172 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


in which the record stands to the facts. From this 
point of view the Pentateuch has been far more 
nearly affected by critical investigation than the 
Prophets. However much we may believe that there 
is a genuine Mosaic foundation in the Pentateuch, 
it is very difficult to lay the finger upon it and say 
with confidence here Moses himself is speaking. 

Perhaps it is as yet rather too soon to speak of the 
‘results’ of modern criticism, but if not its ‘ results,’ at 
least its strongly pronounced tendency is to spread the 
composition of the actual Pentateuch as we have it 
over the period covered by the Monarchy and the 
Exile. If we ignore minor subdivisions, which are 
numerous, and look only at the broad distribution of 
the masses, the component parts of the Pentateuch 
may be said to be three: (1) a double stream of 
narrative, the work of prophets, variously dated be- 
tween 900 and 750 8.c., which forms the greater part 
of the Book of Genesis, but also runs through Exodus 
and Numbers; (2) the Book of Deuteronomy, the 
greater part of which belongs to a date not very long 
before 621 B.c.; and lastly (3) the Priest’s Code, which 
either falls at the end of the Exile or else had a 
latent existence somewhat before it. 

The mere statement of these facts will explain why 
modern criticism in seeking to get at the heart of 
Israel’s religion takes its starting-point from the 
Prophets and not from the Law. It cannot however 
do so without qualification: partly for a critical 
reason, but still more for a theological. Critically it 
is certain that the oldest parts of the Pentateuch, the 


Mosaic Element in the Law. 173 


double stream of prophetical narrative just spoken 
of, the so-called Jehovist and Elohist, are older than 
the oldest of the writing prophets. And theologically 
those prophets imply a large inheritance of belief and 
practice, much of which is no deubt ultimately trace- 
able to Moses and the Mosaic age. It is satisfactory 
to find this Mosaic substratum so distinctly recog- 
nised even by the most critical of the critics, although 
we may question whether some of them refer to it 
quite so much as they ought 1. 

Assuming then, provisionally and until future in- 
quiries confirm or refute it, that the critical theory of 
the composition and origin of the Pentateuch is in the 
main right, we have to ask, What is its bearing on the 
question of Inspiration? From this point of view we 
are reminded that there are three strains, so to speak, 
in the Pentateuch—a Mosaic strain, a prophetic strain, 
and a priestly. Each of these has the measure of 
inspiration proper to it. 

(1) At the head stands that which belongs to 
Moses. We have said that the strictly Mosaic element 


1 <The time of Moses is invariably regarded as the properly creative 
period in Israel’s history, and on that account also as giving the 
pattern and norm for the ages which followed... . The prophets who 
came after gave, it is true, greater distinctness to the peculiar character 
of the nation, but they did not make it; on the contrary, it made them.’ 
‘But within the Pentateuch itself also the Azsfortcal tradition about 
Moses (which admits of being distinguished, and must carefully 
be separated from the /eg7slative, although the latter often clothes 
itself in narrative form) is in its main features manifestly trustworthy, 
and can only be explained as resting on actual facts’ (Wellhausen, 
Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, pp. 7, 18). Cf Montefiore, 
Fiib. Lect. p. 15 1. 


174 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


in the Pentateuch must be indeterminate, because 
the nature of the documents does not permit us to 
define it exactly. We can only argue backwards 
from the character of Israel’s religion when the light 
of history falls more fully and clearly upon it. The 
working out of this appertains to the Theology of the 
Old Testament, and is not germane to the present 
inquiry. It might however perhaps be said that all 
that is most fundamental in the teaching of Moses was 
summed up in two correlated pairs of propositions?: 
(i) ‘ Jehovah (Yahweh) is the God of Israel, and Israel 
is the people of Jehovah’; (ii) ‘ Jehovah is a righteous 
God, and requires righteousness in those who worship 
Him.’ Of course it did not follow that these proposi- 
tions had at first that high and spiritual interpretation 
put upon them which they received later at the hands 
of the prophets. ‘Jehovah Israel's God’ implies 
monolatry, but not at first and in the strict sense 
monotheism. And in like manner the idea ‘ Jehovah 
a righteous God’ would expand as the idea of 
righteousness expanded. But it is just this expansive 
property which is most characteristic of the Mosaic 
religion. It contains the germ of all the after-de- 
velopment, the promise of yet greater things to come. 
The further question may be asked whether the 
Mosaic religion in its turn must not have had its 
antecedents, not merely such general antecedents as 
underlay all primitive religion, but certain special 
antecedents which not only suggested the form which 
it took itself, but also enabled it to take a hold of the 


1 Cf Wellhausen, Sketch, p. 8 ff. ; Montefiore, 477d. Lect. 31 fi; 44 ts 


Mosaic Element tn the Law. 175 


people to whom it was addressed. I think we may 
answer this question in the affirmative, though to 
discuss it would also lie outside the limits of our 
subject}. 

We are concerned not so much with the contents 
of the Mosaic or pre-Mosaic theology as with the 
source from which it was derived. In the prophetic 
age Moses himself was universally regarded as a 
prophet. ‘By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up 
out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved,’ 
writes Hosea (xii. 13); and the same thing is implied 
by Micah (vi. 4). The famous passage in Deuter- 
onomy (xviii. 15, 18), twice quoted in the New 
Testament (Acts iii. 22, vii. 37), speaks of Moses as 
a prophet typical of the whole order. There was 
however a certain consciousness that his inspiration 
was higher, his intercourse with God closer, than that 
of other prophets. ‘If there be a prophet among you, 
I the Lord will make Myself known unto him in a 
vision, I will speak with him ina dream. My servant 
Moses is not so; he is faithful in all Mine house?: 
with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even mani- 
festly, and not in dark speeches; and the form of the 
Lord shall he behold’ (Num, xii. 6-8%), This passage 
is assigned to the prophetical narrative, and so would 
be older than the middle of the eighth century B.c. 


1 See Additional Note A: Zhe Pre-Mosaic History tn the Pentateuch. 

® «Er ist betraut mit [der Leitung von] meinem ganzen Hauswesen ’ 
is the expressive translation of Socin (in Die Heil. Schrift. ὦ. A. T. ed. 
Kautzsch). 

ay, also Deut. xxxiv. 10. 


176 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


The same document (not discriminating between its 
parts) contains the account of the vision of the Burn- 
ing Bush!, and that wonderful description of the vision 
on Sinai? which marks a very exalted form of reve- 
lation. These visions are essentially on the same 
lines with those in Isaiah and Ezekiel, but more 
fundamental, inasmuch as they imply a new or 
strongly enforced view of the Divine nature. We 
ought not perhaps to use them without reserve for 
Moses himself, but there can be little doubt that they 
describe truly, if symbolically, the way in which reve- 
lations were made to him. The distinction, we may 
be sure, was impressed upon his consciousness when 
he had a mandate to speak and when he had not, 
when he was speaking his own words and when he 
was speaking the words of the Lord, as sharply and 
as strongly as it was upon the consciousness of Isaiah 
or Jeremiah. ‘Thus saith the Lord’ has no weaker 
meaning in the Pentateuch than it has with them. 
The inspiration of Moses was like that of the prophets, 
but differs from theirs by its greater originality. The 
prophets introduced no new principle into religion. 
They developed with great freshness and force prin- 
ciples already existing. They drew them out to their 
logical consequences and applied them under new 
circumstances; but except perhaps in connexion with 
the Messianic hope, glimpses of which, if very partial 


1 Exod. ili. 1-12, but not vi. 2-11, which is assigned to P. 

® Ibid. xxxiii. 12-xxxiv. 9. The only question appears to be 
whether this passage belongs as a whole to the Jehovist or to the 
compiler who unites JE, 


Prophetic Element in the Law. 177 


glimpses, came to one after another of the prophetic 
succession, they taught nothing which gave so decisive 
a bent to the religion not only of a single nation but 
of the whole world. 

We should then perhaps be justified in placing the 
inspiration of Moses by itself, as that not only of 
a continuator but a Founder. Out of the common 
ground of the prophetic inspiration it rises ina manner 
above it, because it was granted to Moses to head 
the line of prophets and to give that first impulse 
which they kept alive. 

(2) It is just this relation which is apparent in the 
Pentateuch itself. We have spoken of a triple strain 
of inspiration in the Pentateuch—of Moses himself, of 
prophets, and of priests. But that of Moses alone is 
primary; that of prophets and priests is derivative 
and secondary. Unfortunately if we take our present 
documents, the Pentateuch as it has come down to us, 
the part which is due in it to Moses—great as it 
really must be—is dim and inferential, while that 
which is due to prophet and priest can be marked out 
with considerable clearness. The literary analysis has 
shown that the oldest portion, the twofold narrative, 
running sometimes side by side and sometimes com- 
bined, is prophetical; the latest portions are the work 
of priests.) The Book of Deuteronomy presents a 
double character’: we may see in it the hand at once 
of prophet and priest: it falls at a time when the 
instances of Jeremiah and Ezekiel show how both 
might be united. It would not however be wrong to 

1 Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 175 ff. 
N 


178 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


say that the prophetic spirit predominated; and it is 
just that which made it of all parts of the Law the 
most evangelical 1. 

But between these great literary works and the 
time of Moses there was a continuous chain both of 
prophetic and of priestly activity. And it is the 
fruits of this activity which are embodied in the 
Pentateuch. Wellhausen is probably right in singling 
out as the most faithful picture of the work of Moses 
as lawgiver that which is given in Exodus xviii, where 
he is described as sitting to judge the people from 
morning till evening, hearing their cases and giving 
them answers*. Here we may see the beginning 
of the Torah, which consisted in the first instance 
of decisions given in response to direct inquiry and 
in the name of Jehovah. The Law grew up out 
of the collecting and generalizing of such decisions, 
We can trace this practice of Moses downwards 
through the period of the Judges, though we must 
not argue from the name that it was characteristic of 
all of them. We hear of Deborah, the prophetess, 
the wife of Lapidoth, dwelling under the palm-tree 
between Ramah and Bethel, where the children of 
Israel came to her for judgment (Judges iv. 4, 5). 
And again we hear of Samuel going in circuit to 
Ramah and Gilgal and Bethel (1 Sam. vii. 16, 17). 

But these functions of judgment were not confined 
to the higher prophets, nor were they always exer- 
cised under conditions of the higher inspiration. There 


? See especially St. Mark xii. 29-31. 
* Sketch of Hist. of Israel and Judah, p. Το. 


Priestly Elemeni tn the Law. 179 


is the same shading-off of higher into lower, of what 
we call natural into what we call supernatural, here as 
elsewhere. Moses is represented as at the advice of 
Jethro appointing a number of inferior judges who are 
to relieve him of the lighter cases. All we are told 
concerning them is that they are to be ‘able men, 
such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain’ 
(Exod. xviii. 21). These are fit qualifications for the 
application of known principles. The harder cases, 
involving new and untried principles, were reserved 
for the ear of Moses himself, and we may suppose for 
those who succeeded to the authority of Moses. But 
it was just these harder cases which gave their dis- 
tinctive stamp to the codes preserved for us in the 
Pentateuch. 

(3) Parallel to this prophetic judging, and perhaps 
not always to be accurately distinguished from it, 
was another kind more closely connected with the 
sanctuary and the special prerogative of the priests. 
There too the people came to ‘inquire of the Lord.’ 
Certain ceremonies were prescribed for the purpose— 
in particular the use of the Urim and Thummim, which 
appears to have been a sort of lot, which gave the 
answer ‘yes’ or ‘no! Not a very elevated form of 
religious activity, it may be thought; rather upon 
much the same level as that heathen oracle of which 
king Ahaziah sent to inquire at Ekron (2 Kings i. 2). 
In the last lecture we saw that Prophecy also had its 
humble side; but just as an Isaiah grew out of the 

* Robertson Smith, O. 7. 7. C. p. 292, n/i; Schultz, Zzeol. ὦ, A. T. 


D257 ἔν: 66. 4: 
Ν 2 


180 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


one, so also a Hilkiah or a Jeremiah grew out of the 
other. The same ‘purpose of God according to selec- 
tion’ worked both through the prophetic order and 
through the priestly order’. And the result of its 
operation, in part upon each separately and in part 
upon both combined, may be seen in the actual codes, 
forming a progressive series, which are collected for us 
in the Pentateuch. 

Let us take as a specimen the oldest and simplest 
of these codes, the so-called ‘Book of the Covenant’ 
(Exod. xx. 23—xxili. 33). This book is older than the 
prophetical narrative in which it was incorporated, and 
according to Cornill? embodied ‘the customary law 
of the early Monarchy’; that is to say, it not only 
contains the formulated decisions of that age, but the 
formulated decisions which had accumulated gradually 
up to that age. Looking at this code, there are two 
things which strike us about it. One is its essentially 
religious character. The provisions of it are ex- 
pressed as coming from God Himself. They carry 
with them Divine sanction, and are based upon the 
Divine attributes. ‘Ye shall not afflict any widow, or 
fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and 
they cry at all unto Me, I will surely hear their cry, 
and My wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with 


1 The difference between the prophetic and priestly elements in the 
Law is well marked by Wellhausen, who compares the Torah of the 
priests to a spring which is constantly running, and that of the prophet 
to one ‘which is intermittent, but which when it is in action, wells up 
all the more powerfully’ (Gesch. dsraels, p. 413). 

2 Einleitung, p. 75. 


The Oldest Code. | 181 


the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your 
children fatherless’ (Exod. xxii. 22-24). If a neigh- 
bour’s garment is taken in pledge, it is to be restored 
to him before sundown. ‘For it is his only covering 

. wherein shall he sleep? And it shall come to 
pass, when he crieth unto Me, that I will hear; for 
I am gracious’ (2ézd. ver. 27). When we consider 
this characteristic, which is not peculiar to the Book 
of the Covenant but runs through the whole legisla- 
tion from first to last, we see clearly how an element 
of inspiration enters into it. The lawgiver, whoever 
he is, the succession of lawgivers, have really ‘stood 
in the council’! of the Almighty. They speak, and are 
authorized to speak, in His name. The consulting of 
the Lord was not a mere delusion. It was an ex- 
pression of the fact that Israel. was really the people 
of His choice, that He had promised to. dwell with 
them and walk with them, and that He should be 
their God and they would be His people. 

The second characteristic is the anxious sense of 
justice which breathes through all the clauses, espe- 
cially towards the weak and defenceless—the stranger, 
the widow, the fatherless, the poor, the slave* It is 


Py [ets XMile TA n so: 

* Comp. Huxley, Lssays on Controverted Questions, Ὁ. 52: ‘The 
Bible has been the M/agna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed; 
down to modern times, no State has had a constitution in which 
the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which 
the duties, so much more than the privileges, of rulers are insisted upon, 
as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and Leviticus; nowhere 
is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, in the long run, 
depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down,’ 


2 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


in this early code that we find that little touch of 
humane sentiment even towards dumb animals, ‘ Thou 
shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.” No doubt 
the particular form which the sense of justice takes is 
conditioned by the age to which it belongs. It is in 
some respects of a rudimentary kind. For instance, 
we find here that very law of retaliation, the eye for 
an eye and tooth for a tooth, which was to be re- 
pealed under the Christian dispensation. Even this 
provision was probably in the first instance a mitiga- 
tion of existing practice ; it seems to have meant not 
‘an eye shall be exacted’ but ‘only an eye shall be 
exacted.’ But side by side with this principle we have 
the germs of another which was destined ultimately 
to supersede it. The Christian precept is, ‘Love 
your enemies.’ But a distinct step has been taken 
towards loving one’s enemy when it is laid down 
that his ox or his ass are not to suffer, that they 
are to be restored to him when they go astray, and 
that, enemy though he is, if his ass should fall down 
under its burden it is to be relieved. The considera- 
tion which is extended to an enemy's chattels may 
soon come to be extended to himself. 

But there is another side to the Pentateuchal legis- 
lation of which so far little has been said, the cultus 
or regulations for worship. Some simple regulations 
of this kind enter into the Book of the Covenant of 
which we have just been speaking. These of course 
expand and multiply until they take up a large part 
of the completed Pentateuch. The laws as we now 
have them probably date from every period in the 


The Ceremonial Law. 183 


history of Israel, some of them, like the institution of 
sacrifice, circumcision, the sabbath, going back some 
way beyond Moses, very possibly to the time before 
the Hebrew nation had separated from its Semitic 
kindred. On the other hand, some of the latest 
provisions appear to fall between Ezekiel and Ezra, 
and some it may be even later than Ezra. It would 
be out of place for me to attempt to particularize. 
The more exact determination of dates must be 
left to those whose business it is to make a special 
study of the Old Testament. Only by the way 
I would venture to suggest that special caution 
should be used in applying the argument from 
silence. 

The ceremonial law is the chief monument of the 
work of the priests, and brings home to us more than 
anything else their share in the development of Israel’s 
religion. Can we claim for them inspiration in this ? 
Of the two main tests which we applied to the work 
of the prophets—their own consciousness and the char- 
acter of the result of their work—in the case of the 
priests we have access only to the latter. But we can 
stand back, as it were, from this work of theirs as it 
has come down to us, so as to see it as a whole and 
let the leading principles disengage themselves from 
the mass of details; and so looking upon it we can 
ask ourselves whether it is such a product as is worthy 
to have come from God—to have come from Him, 
that is, in the way in which other forms of revela- 
tion have come from Him, through avowedly human 
channels and by human and natural processes, yet with 


14 IV. The Law and the Hagtographa. 


an impulse and guidance communicated to those pro- 
cesses by the Holy Spirit. 

A natural prejudice is excited against the work 
of the priests by two things: on the one hand by 
the attitude of opposition to it taken up at. certain 
times by the Prophets, and on the other hand by its 
complete abrogation on the coming of Christ. 

Although it may be true that the ceremonial system 
was not perfected until after the Exile, there must 
have been at least an elaborate cultus long before 
this. Some of the grandest passages in the Prophets 
are aimed directly against superstitious devotion to 
the externals of worship while the moral law was 
neglected! The burning zeal of the Prophets for 
spiritual religion frequently takes this negative form 
of denouncing a worship which was clearly not 
spiritual. 

There lies the gist of the whole matter. The 
cultus doubtless might be unspiritual, but if it was, 
the fault lay not in the cultus, but in the worshipper. 
The system so laboriously built up by the priests 
was expressive of some of the profoundest truths of 
Israel's religion. On two sides more especially. It 
provided a definite sensible outlet of which many a 
worshipper gladly availed himself for feelings of thank- 
fulness; and it also expressed, and by expressing 
deepened, the sense of guilt and reconciliation with 
God. We are apt to think of the Law as a mere 
burden. We have only to turn to the Psalms to see 
that it was very far from being that. ‘How amiable 


1 Amos v. 21-24; Micah vi. 6-8; Isa. i. 11 ff.; Jer. vii. 21 ff., &c. 


The Ceremonial Law. 185 


are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, 
yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my 
heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God?’ 
The writer of this did not find the Temple-worship 
burdensome. The very sparrows seemed to him 
happy because they made their nests in the sacred 
courts. It was a kindred spirit who wrote Psalms 
ἘΠῚ and xliii. He too is athirst for God, that is for 
the house of God, where he once went with the mul- 
titude with the ‘voice of praise and thanksgiving 
among such as keep holyday*’ It is the same joy 
of pilgrimage to Jerusalem which animates the Psalms 
Eo-called of) Aiseents ‘or “Deorees®) Or if again 
we think of the Law not so much as a system of 
worship but as a collection of multitudinous precepts, 
we have but to look at the latter half of Ps. xix or 
Ps. cxix to see that these too might form a delightful 
study. Not the Psalmists alone but many a Rabbi 
in after-ages speaks with the ring of sincerity in his 
words of the pleasure which he took in the study of 
the Law‘, though his methods may seem to us arid 
and mistaken. 

The same experience is repeated from age to age. 
It makes all the difference whether we look at these 


Psp lxxxiy, ΤΠ: 

? Ps, xi. 1—5. 

5 Pss. CXX—-CXXXIV. 

* I may be allowed to express my sympathy with Mr. Montefiore in 
his generous defence of this side of later Judaism. I have long 
thought that Christian writers have done it much injustice. But 
Mr. Montefiore himself seems to me somewhat to undervalue the 
<eremonial side of the Law. 


186 LV. The Law and the Hagtographa. 


things from without or from within. A hard mechan- 
ical external worship, performed unwillingly as a mere 
routine and divorced from spiritual religion and mo- 
rality, is at once joyless and valueless. The Prophets, 
speaking in Jehovah’s name, rejected that. But it 
does not follow that they would equally reject the 
warm and heartfelt service of souls which dwelt 
lovingly on the significance of all that wealth of 
details which a piety like their own had constructed, 
not without the Spirit of God. 

Still less can a Christian undervalue the Levitical 
system. True, it has been done away. But why? 
Because its function had been discharged, its work 
was done. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant were 
types and shadows of a yet greater and more effica- 
cious Sacrifice. Do not, my brothers in Christ, do 
not let us surrender this belief which has been pre- 
cious to so many generations of those who are gone. 
Many things concur to shake it; and this present age 
is apt to be impatient of that the full bearings of 
which it does not understand. By the very nature 
of the case it cannot understand them. We cannot 
understand how God feels towards sin. It seems 
to us easy to forgive largely because we are in- 
different to it. Forgiveness implies a change—or 
what we are obliged to call a change, though our 
words are random words and we are speaking of 
things that lie far beyond our ken—in the relation of 
God to sin. And if anything could bring about such 
a change, if anything could appeal to the Father's 
heart, if anything could possess an infinite value, 


The Ceremonial Law. 187 


surely it was the Death so undertaken out of bound- 
less love and compassion for suffering humanity of 
the Incarnate Son. Do not let us use hard and 
in truth irreverent language about a penalty exacted: 
and a debt paid. Some kind of necessity there was, 
but such a necessity as we cannot gauge. We know 
that it was there, not from any abstract reasoning for 
which we have not sufficient premises, but only from 
the facts in which it issued. A przord arguments the 
cautious Christian, who does not seek to be wise beyond 
what is written, will avoid. But at the same time he 
will feel that to reject the idea of a true sacrifice is 
to evacuate of its meaning much of the language of 
the New Testament which speaks of the Death of 
Christ not only as a sacrifice but as ‘propitiatory, 
and speaks of it thus not only in one place but in 
many. Moreover, besides the language of Scripture, 
he will see that the assumption which he is making at 
once fills with meaning the old Levitical sacrifices. 
It gives them a point in which they culminate and 
are fulfilled, so that they are no longer needed. The 
keystone, as it were, is dropped into the arch; and 
instead of coming to a mutilated and abrupt con- 
clusion, the ancient system ceases only because it 
has passed by a natural and foreordained transition 
into something higher. So the counsels of God are 
rounded off and consummated. 

But besides the direct value of the cultus as a 
cultus and for the profound religious ideas which it 
expresses, it had also another function which although 
indirect was hardly less important. The institutions 


8 JV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


embodied in the Law were for Israel the great bond of 
cohesion. They were the outward and visible sign of 
national unity. And as spirit is too volatile a thing 
‘to be preserved unless it is expressed in forms, it was 
the formal and ceremonial side of the Law which kept 
the nation together, and so protected and safeguarded 
the spiritual treasures of which it had the stewardship. 
Without the iron framework supplied by the Law, 
without the exclusiveness which was only another 
side of the cohesiveness which the Law generated, in 
the age of trial which followed the Captivity Israel 
must have gone to pieces. It could hardly have failed 
to be absorbed and submerged as other nations were. 
But with it would have perished the stores of Divine 
teaching which its previous history had accumulated. 
Fragments might have survived here and there; but 
they would have been fragments from a wreck: the 
few scattered planks and spars which were all that 
remained of a noble vessel that would never more 
carry its living freight to their destination. The unity 
and cohesion which were the marks of a Divine 
purpose would have been lost. We might still have 
had a few stray books or portions of books, but we 
should have had no Bible’. 


II. I would fain linger over these themes, but the exi- 
gencies of my subject compel me to pass on to another 
of its main divisions, the so-called Hlagzographa, a 
somewhat miscellaneous collection of Sacred Writings 


‘ I owe this point, which seems to me very good and true, to 
Mr. Headlam. 


Inspiration of the Hagiographa. 189 


which make up the third section of the Jewish Canon. 
It will only be possible here to touch upon some of 
its salient features—the Psalms, the Wisdom Books 
(Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes), the Song of Songs, 
Daniel, and Esther. 

But before entering upon questions of detail, some 
preliminary remarks of a more general character may 
be made upon the inspiration of this section. 

Revelation, as it is presented to us in the Old 
Testament, is like an inland lake which receives in- 
deed a certain amount of surface drainage, but is fed 
mainly by springs which penetrate deep down into the 
earth. The water which wells up from these hidden 
sources spreads out to meet the rills which come 
down from the surrounding slopes and absorbs them. 
Dropping metaphor, we may say that there were at 
the heart of Israel’s religion certain great formative 
or generative principles which increasingly as time 
went on permeated the nation and infused themselves 
into others besides those with whom they arose. The 
authors of these principles which I have described 
as formative and generative are the law-makers and 
prophets, not speaking or acting in their own name 
or by any initiative of their own, but by what they 
claimed to be a commission direct from God. The 
persistent work of these men had its effect. In spite 
of the difficulties with which they had to contend and 
the opposition with which they were met they were 
not mere voices crying in the wilderness. They did 
succeed in leavening the people with something of 
their own spirit. Even at the worst times there was 


το LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


a ‘remnant’ who had not bowed the knee to Baal; and 
after the discipline of the Exile the influence of the 
written and spoken word together became more and 
more dominant. To adopt a phrase which has been 
recently used, Israel became ‘a Church-nation.’ ‘Before 
the Exile,’ we are told, ‘it was only the prophets 
and their disciples who had a sense of their divine 
mission to proclaim the true God; after the Exile, 
it was the entire nation in its corporate capacity’ 
I suspect that this is put somewhat too absolutely. 
There were 7,000 of the faithful in the Northern King- 
dom alone of whom Elijah was ignorant, and there 
is evidence enough that the teaching of the other 
prophets fell at least upon some fruitful soil besides 
their own more immediate disciples. But an exag- 
geration may mark a tendency; and the tendency 
was no doubt in the direction indicated. So it came 
about that there were many in Israel, more at some 
periods than at others, and especially more in the 
later periods than the earlier, who without being 
either law-makers or prophets themselves had yet 
deeply imbibed the teaching of law-makers and 
prophets. So deeply did they imbibe this teaching, 
it took so powerful a hold upon them, that they in 
turn were able to give true and adequate expression 
to principles which they did not originate and which 
they helped to develope only in a minor degree. It 
was not for nothing that the Word of God had come 
to them so directly; it was not for nothing that they 
had lived in such close contact with men who were 


1 Cheyne, Azds to the Devout Study of Criticism, p. 171. 


The Psalms. ΤΟΙ 


the immediate channels and organs of revelation; it 
was not for nothing that they were themselves mem- 
bers of a nation which had a prophetic and even, as 
it has been said, a ‘ Messianic’ function!. It was 
through them that the nation discharged this func- 
tion. In a certain sense and degree the devout wish 
of Moses, that all the Lord’s people might be prophets, 
came true. The Spirit of the Lord was really upon 
them, and they too became organs and channels of its 
working—if not exactly main arteries, yet those smaller 
channels by which it is dispersed and distributed and 
brought to bear upon the life of men. 

The books known as the Hagzographa were the 
work of these men, and are the expression of the part 
which they played in the economy of revelation. At 
the head of them stand ¢he Psalms—a book endeared 
alike to Jew and Christian, a book which carries with 
it the zestemonium Spiritus Sanctz as few besides. 

Here again we are confronted at the outset with 
a critical problem. The Psalter has been called the 
Preyato the Old Testament 2’; and 1615. true that 
neither the criticism nor the history of the Old Testa- 
ment can be regarded as complete until the place of the 
Psalter in relation to them has been determined. Its 
importance will be seen at once when we consider how 
much it contains of the spirituality of the Old Testa- 
ment. Our whole conception of the history of Israel’s 


* Bp. Westcott, quoted by Cheyne, Azds to the Devout Siudy, &c., 
Pp. 139, 151. 

* By Dr. C. A. Briggs, in North American Review, Jan. 1892, 
p- 104. 


192 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


religion is affected according to the stages in it to 
which this mass of spiritual song is assigned. Already 
it would seem as if a revolution were being wrought 
in the older view which regarded the age from Ezra 
onwards as an expanse of dry and barren legalism. 
If the Psalter is really, as it is contended, in the main 
the ‘hymn-book of the Second Temple,’ that alone is 
enough to redeem the period to which it belongs from 
any such charge. And this might well be thought 
sufficient compensation for the denuding of earlier 
periods, that the later should be enriched out of their 
abundance. We must not however allow ourselves to 
be influenced by considerations of this kind. The 
object of history and criticism is to give to every 
period its due. 

The question as to the date of the different parts of 
the Psalter is still sad 7udice'!. Much attention has been 
called to itof late, andvery divergent views are current’; 
but the whole position is a hopeful one. If in some 
directions the data are scanty and liable to be strained 


1 See Additional Note, p. 270: Zhe inferior Limit for the Date of 
the Psalter. 

* It is characteristic of this divergence that of two of the most recent 
monographs on the date of portions of the Psalter, both by able and 
competent men and going closely into their respective subjects, one 
maintains that all the psalms of Book I (i-xli), with the exception of 
Pss. i and xxxiii, were written before the Babylonian Exile (E. Sellin, 
Disputatio de Origine Carminum quae primus Psaltertt liber continet; 
Erlangen and Leipzig, 1892), while the other, taking a group of eleven 
psalms, eight of which belong to Book I, contends that all are the work 
of the same author writing at the end of or soon after the Exile, whose 
name even is elicited through a hint of Lagarde’s as ‘ Phadaias’ or 
‘Phadael’ (Rahlfs, And und Anaw in den Psalmen, Gottingen, 1892). 


The Psalms. 193 


beyond what they will legitimately bear, in other direc- 
tions they are plentiful; and the patient labour which 
is being devoted to them cannot long be without 
fruit. 

Thus much is clear. The Psalter as we have it is 
made up of a number of smaller collections, which 
once had a separate existence. The best analogy for 
the history and structure of the Psalter would be that 
which is supplied by our own hymn-books. Just as 
the hymns of Watts and Wesley, of Newton and 
Cowper, of Lyte and Keble have been to a greater or 
less extent incorporated into succeeding collections, so 
also a number of minor collections have contributed to 
make our present Psalter. Fortunately the Jewish 
editors kept their materials together more than ours 
do, so that it is possible even now to distinguish some 
of thesesmaller collections. Two of them seem to have 
borne originally the name of David!; and it is of course 
ultimately from them that the whole volume came to 
be regarded as David's. A similar process seems to 
have been at work in the smaller collections and in the 
larger. A group of Psalms would be brought together, 
some with headings attached to them; and the head- 
ing which stood first would be taken to cover the 
whole group. When the group was broken up or 
inserted in a larger book, this first heading would be 


1 It has been rendered highly probable that in the original order of 
Book II the Davidic psalms (li-Ixxii) came first, then the Korah 
psalms (xlii-xlix), and then a group of Asaph psalms consisting of 
Pss, |, Ixxiii-Ixxxiii (Driver, Zx/rod. p. 350; Robertson Smith, O. Ζ. 7. C. 
Pp. 199, &c.). 

oO 


194 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


repeated with each of the psalms which it was thought 
to cover. It has been acutely pointed out that there 
is one instance in which this can be proved to have 
been the case. There is a little group, Pss. cxxi— 
cxxxiv, each of which is headed in our Bible, ‘a Song 


of Degrees’ (A. V.) or ‘ Ascents’ (R.V.),, 2.2) ammel 


probability a psalm sung on pilgrimage by those who 
went up to attend the great feasts at Jerusalem. But 
although each of these Psalms is now headed ‘a song 
of degrees, or ascents,’ the Hebrew is strictly not ‘a 
song, but ‘the songs,’ which is clearly the general 
heading of the group repeated by inadvertence without 
alteration before each Psalm'!. In like manner we can 
easily understand how as an appendix came to be 
added to a group which bore a name, that name was 
soon taken to cover the appendix as well. And we 
can also understand how because the whole Psalter 
was headed by a Davidic collection it too came to be 
regarded as throughout Davidie. 

It is now generally agreed that the headings which 
have come down to us are of very little direct value. 
But indirectly their value may be considerable. In 
conjunction with other data they may enable us to 
determine the succession of the different parts of the 
Psalter 2, They may give us a clue to the date of the 
editorial processes to which both whole and parts have 
been subject. 

For besides this external editing, if we may so call 
it, which brought the groups of Psalms together and 


? Robertson Smith, O. 7. /. C. p. 203. 
* See the quotation from Budde in Additional Note, p. 270 7/. 


The Psalms. 195 


provided them with headings, there was no doubt 
a good deal of internal editing as well. The fact that 
the Psalter was used in the Temple services would 
naturally lead to a certain amount of adaptation. Many 
of the Psalms we may be sure were not originally 
written with this object. Some modification would be 
needed in order to fit the expression of private feeling 
for public worship ; and we can also well believe that 
ideas and allusions which sounded archaic and out 
of date would be modernized. Just as in our own 
hymn-books the form in which the hymn is actually 
sung often differs considerably from the original, so also 
in the Jewish Church the same thing would take place, 
but probably on a larger scale, because, as we have 
already said, ail idea of literary property and of the 
obligations entailed by it was absent. 

We shall have to return to this side of the subject 
when we come to consider the history of the Psalter 
along with the other books as a collection itself and 
part of a collection. But for the present the main 
question before us is that of Inspiration. In what sense 
can we say that the Psalms are inspired ? 

In the first place we have to note that there are 
a number of instances! in which the Psalmist adopts 
forms of language which we are accustomed to as- 
sociate specially with prophecy. These are for the 
most part cases in which Jehovah Himself is introduced 
as speaking. In Ps. xii. 5 we have an asseveration 


1 These are collected by Dr. Cheyne, Acds to Devout Study, δια.» 
p.152n. Compare the same writer’s commentary on Pss. Ixii. 11, 
IXxxv. 9. 

Ο 2 


196 LV. The Law and the Hagtogratha. 


quite after the manner of the prophets: ‘I will az.se, 
saith the Lord: I will set him {5 5. the poor and 
needy) in safety,’ &c. In Ps. xlvi. 10, as a climax to 
the song of triumph which is commonly referred to 
the destruction of the army of Sennacherib, a short 
emphatic sentence is referred to Jehovah Himself: ‘Be 
still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted 
among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’ 
In three other psalms (Pss. 1. 4-23, Ixxv. 2-61, Ixxxi. 
6-16) longer passages are put in the mouth of Jehovah; 
the psalmist becomes His spokesman, just like the 
prophets. And again in no less than three places 
(Pss. xlix. 4, Ixii. 11, Ixxxv. 87) we seem -to have 
glimpses of the process by which the psalmist received 
some special revelation, in every case as coming from 
without, from God, and clearly distinguished from any 
imagination of his own. 

Now it is somewhat remarkable that when we come 
to look into the authorship of the psalms which contain 
these references, two (Pss. xii, lxii) are ascribed to 
David, three (xlvi, xlix, lxxxv) to the ‘sons of Korah,’ 
and three more (I, Ixxv, Ixxxi) to Asaph. In other 
words, six out of eight are Levitical. They are the 
work not of prophets but of priests. Again, in this 
connexion we observe that Miriam is called a ‘pro- 
phetess’ (Exod. xv. 20, E) on the occasion of her 
song of triumph over Pharaoh; that in Chronicles 
the Levitical singers are several times called ‘seers’ 
(1 Chron. xxv. 5 Heman, 2 Chron, xxix. 30 Asaph, 


1 Or, according to some, vv. 2-5, or 2-4. 
* See Cheyne and Baethgen, ad Joc. 


The Psalms. 197 


x.. v- 15 Jeduthun); and that in the same books the 
service of music and song is described as ‘ prophesy- 
irg’ (1 Chron. xxv. 1-3 Zev). And we remember how, 
in the earlier period at least, the prophets made use 
of music as a stimulus to inspiration (1 Sam. x. 5 f.; 
a ings) tite ἘΣ. | 

It would be wrong to argue at once from these data 
that the psalmists possessed the full measure of pro- 
phetic inspiration. It is rather by an extension of its 
use that the word ‘prophesy’ comes to be applied 
to them. And the comparative rarity of prophetic 
passages in the Psalms leaves us free to suppose that 
even in these there may be a certain literary element. 
The alternative must be open that they are not 
directly the work of prophets speaking prophetically, 
but rather modelled upon prophetic utterances. We 
may however rightly infer that a hard and fast line is 
not to be drawn round the prophetic inspiration, as 
if the prophets had it in its fulness and none beside 
them. Here, as elsewhere, we cannot doubt that there 
was the same gradual shading off of higher into 
lower forms and wece versa. In the Church of the Old 
Covenant as in that of the New every man had his 
proper charzsma; and the self-same Spirit expressed 
Itself in many degrees and ways. 

We must needs trace the influence of that Holy 
Spirit through the whole Psalter—through the whole 
generally, though not alike in every part, for it must be 
admitted that sometimes we are conscious not only of 
human limitations, but of the violence of human passion. 

1 See Richm, Lvnlectung in d. A. T. ii. 199. 


198 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


The organ-music of the Psalms is of wonderful com- 
pass and range. It has its low notes as well as its 
high. But taken altogether, and when due allowance 
has been made for the imperfection of the human 
medium, it remains the classic to all time of prayer and 
praise ! | 

Let us think for a moment what that means. When 
we have mentally put aside every verse which bears 
upon itself the mark of a lower stage of religious 
attainment, how many hundreds, nay how many 
thousands, remain which even to this day, and even 
translated out of their original tongue into foreign and 
alien modes of speech, are the most perfect expression 
we can find of religious emotion?! This little nation, 
the shuttlecock of its powerful neighbours, so devoid 
of greatness in arts or sciences, after all these centuries 
of religious and social advance, puts into our mouths 
words which for penetrating truth and beauty we could 
never approach ourselves! 

If we were to take away from our hymn-books all 
they contained which was the mere echo and shadow 
of the Psalter, how much of value would be left ? 
This insignificant book of a hundred and fifty sacred 
poems—truly the product of a nation because every 
one of them is to all intents and purposes anonymous 
—has been teaching the world, dictating to the world 


' The Psalms as expressive of religious emotion have been the 
theme of much eloquent writing. Among recent examples may be 
mentioned, Church, G7//s of Civilisation, pp. 391-441, Advent Sermons, 
pp. 13 ff, 39 ff.; Fairbairn, Christ in the Centuries, p. 72 f.; ‘Cheyne, 
Aids to Devout Siudy, p. 154 f. 


The Wrsdom-Literature. 199 


its prayers and its praises, ever since it was first com- 
posed! Shall we not say—zszust we not say—that the 
book which has done that bears the outward stamp and 
sign of the Spirit of God? Does it not enter, so con- 
spicuously as to compel us to recognise its importance, 
into the working out of that vast design by which 
God has first formed and then kept alive the know- 
ledge of Himself amongst men ? 


The Psalms are not all hymns. Some take a 
philosophical or didactic turn (notably Pss. xxxvii, 
xlix, and ]xxili); and in this they touch another branch 
of Hebrew literature which is represented within the 
Canon by the group of books, Proverbs, Job, and 
Ecclesiastes '. These books are the work of a class 
who stand out clearly in the history of Israel by the 
side of prophets and priests, though the allusions to 
them are naturally fewer, as they did not play so 
prominent a part in the public life of the nation. This 
is the class of the ‘Wise Men.’ They did not exactly 
constitute an order in the same sense as the prophets. 
We hear nothing of ‘schools of the wise’ like the 
schools of the prophets. And yet their activity is in 
any case spread over many centuries; they conform to 
the same models, and keep up a continuous literary 
tradition. 

1 There is much very valuable literature on the Wisdom-Books, 
notably in English the sections in Dr. Driver’s Zntroduction, and Dr. 
Cheyne’s Job and Solomon; but 1 must discharge a debt of gratitude 
by saying that for my particular purpose I have found nothing so 
helpful as the popular studies by Dr. A. B. Davidson in Book by Book. 


Dr. Davidson has a singular power of getting at the heart of a religious 
conception. 


200 77. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


It is remarkable that there should have been such a 
definite assignment of subjects as there is between the 
‘wise men’ on the one hand and prophets and priests 
on the other. The wise men do not deal with the 
larger political issues, with the national aspirations, 
with the Messianic hope; they have little to say as 
to law or cultus; but they confine themselves to 
problems of individual life and conduct. The strong 
religious background is common to this with the other 
leading forms of Hebrew literature ; but it is concerned 
in the first instance with practice and morals rather 
than with theology proper, though we shall see in a 
moment how it might rise from the one to the other. 


The most characteristic product of the Wise Men is 
the Look of Proverbs, From this alone we might 
judge what an extended history the class must have 
had, though it has not found any chronicler. The 
historians of Israel were concerned with the ways and 
dealings of God, and not with the achievements— 
literary or otherwise—of men. Like the Psalms, the 
Book of Proverbs is highly composite, and consists of 
a number of smaller collections brought together in 
one larger collection. These smaller collections in 
turn we can hardly doubt represent the gradual accre- 
tions of gnomic material contributed by many minds, 
and much of it handed down orally from mouth to 
mouth before it was committed to writing. This 
seems a fair inference from the fact that the same 
proverb is so often repeated with but slight variation. 
The tradition which connects Solomon with this 


Proverbs, 201 


genomic Wisdom is good and early?; and it is quite 
possible that some of the proverbs which have come 
down to us may be ultimately derivable from Solomon 
himself, though we cannot determine which—the titles, 
in this respect, not really helping us. I hope in the 
next lecture to say a little more about the chronology 
of the book. It must suffice for the present to express 
the opinion that relatively the small collection xxv—xxix 
is probably the earliest, and that while the Appendix 
(xxx, Xxx1) is no doubt the latest of all, there seem 
to be good reasons for regarding i. 7-1x as the 
latest of the larger divisions. This view? is not only 
probable on literary grounds, but also gives the best 
sequence in connexion with our present subject, which 
leads us to consider the Book of Proverbs primarily 
in its bearing upon the history of Inspiration and 
Revelation. 

Here we must start from the fact that the Wisdom 
which finds its expression in the Book of Proverbs 15, 
in its genus atleast, no monopoly of Israel. When the 
document just referred to in the Book of Kings speaks 
of the wisdom of Solomon, its standards of comparison 


1 Kings iv. 29-34 (in our English Bibles, =v. 9-14 in Heb.), re- 


ferred by Kamphausen (in Kautzsch’s Bible) and by Kittel to that 
‘Book of the Acts of Solomon’ (1 Kings xi. 41) which Kittel describes 
as the oldest piece of historical writing in Hebrew (Gesch. d. Hed, ii. 
50); otherwise Cornill, “77. p. 121. 

* It was first put forward in the form here adopted by Dr. A. B. 
Davidson, and is mentioned with approval by Dr. Driver (Ln/rod. 
p- 381), but in regard to the position of cc. i-ix is accepted by many 
other scholars (e.g. Cornill, Z7vd. p. 262; Cheyne, Zvfos. 1892, i. 
245). 


"225 7Κ΄. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


are taken outside Israel. ‘Solomon's wisdom, it says, 
‘excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East, 
and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than 
all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and 
Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame 
was in all the nations round about!” And elsewhere 
we gather that Edom in like manner was famous for 
its wisdom ?. Such wisdom naturally took the form 
of shrewd observations on life. We find such observa- 
tions in the Book of Proverbs, but we find there some- 
thing more. It is not likely that the proverbs of Edom 
or of the East if they had been preserved to us would 
have had for their keynote that which runs through 
not only the Book of Proverbs but the whole Wisdom- 
literature, ‘Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; 
and to depart from evil is understanding *.’ We cannot 
doubt that the wisdom of Israel differed from that of 
the neighbouring nations by the way in which it ran 
up into religion; nor can we doubt that it was as much 
superior to theirs as the religion of Israel was superior 
to their religion. But there is this further characteristic 
of the Book of Proverbs, that its teaching rises upwards 
in an ascending scale which seems roughly to corre- 
spond with the chronologica! succession of its different 
portions. The lower stratum begins with the observa- 
tions on life and manners, on man in society, on the 
effect of good and evil fortune upon character. We 


' 1 Kings iv. 30 f. ἵν. τὸ f. Heb.) 

* Jer. xlix.'7 ;'Obad. 8. 

* Job xxviii. 28 (cf. Prov. i. 7, ix. 10; Eccles, xii. 13). I quote the 
maxim in the form in which it is most familiar. 


Proverbs. 203 


can imagine that here there would be much in common 
with the gnomic literature of the East generally. But 
with the Hebrews these observations would take a 
more religious cast and colour, until there is gradually 
formed that identification of Wisdom with Religion, as 
it were the ‘grave and beautiful damsel named Dis- 
cretion’ who discourses with Christian the pilgrim on 
his way to Mount Zion. And then the teacher-poet, 
having reached this high conception and looking out 
upon the world in the light which it gives, begins to 
see the scattered indications of wise appointment in 
nature, in man, in the social order and moral constitu- 
tion of things, converge inwards until they meet in 
that Divine attribute by virtue of which God made the 
world. 

“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, 

Before His works of old. 

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, 

Or ever the earth was. 


When there were no depths, I was brought forth, 
When there were no fountains abounding with water. 


There was I by Him, as a master workman: 
And I was daily His delight, 

Rejoicing always before Him; 

Rejoicing in His habitable earth; 

And my delight was with the sons of men’ 

This sublime picture of Creative Wisdom was not 
suffered to remain a mere poetical ornament of the 
book in which it occurs. It gave the first suggestion 
of the idea which is taken up in the prologue of 
St. John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, 


1 Prov. viii. 22-24, 30, 31. 


224 LV. The Law and the Παρτοργαῤῆα. 


and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God.... All things were made by Him; and without 
Him was not anything made that hath been made. In 
Him was life; and the Life was the light of men!’ It 
is needless to say what a momentous influence this idea 
has had on the whole after-course of Christian theology. 
If we believe that that theology expresses, however 
roughly and approximately, what God designed that 
man should think about Himself, then in the carrying 
out of that design the eighth chapter of Proverbs has 
played an important part, and it is only the natural 
and fitting climax and culmination of the rest of 
the book. 


The Sook of ¥0b contains a personification of 
Wisdom not less sublime, though introduced with a 
different purpose and not so directly on the line of 
development of fundamental theological ideas. At 
least it does not point forward in like manner to the 
future, but emphasizes—nobly and most effectively 
emphasizes—an_ idea already obtained, that of the 
unsearchable transcendence of God. 

Taking the Book of Job as a whole, it might be 
urged that it struggles with a problem to which it does 
not furnish a completely satisfactory or final solution. 
The prosperity of the wicked and unmerited suffering 
of the righteous was a stone of stumbling to the 
Hebrew mind. It is repeatedly coming up, as in the 
didactic Psalms to which reference has been made, but 
nowhere is there such a sustained attempt to grapple 


*- Sb, john iia, Be 


Job. 205 


with it as here in the Book of Job. And even here 
only once, and that obscurely and almost doubtfully, 
does the argument pierce through to that belief 
in a future life which gives the best answer to Job's 
perplexities. 

To say this however means but little, if it is said in 
disparagement of the book as inspired or as a vehicle 
of revelation. God has willed that the different steps 
in the progress of revelation should be closely linked 
each to each, and the time for belief in a future state 
was not yet. It has been no less truly than finely 
observed that for the Hebrew ‘it was not defect but 
excess of religion that postponed so long the doctrine 
of immortality’ It was because within the sphere of 
revelation the sense of the presence of God was so full 
and so intense, that this life only seemed to suffice and 
it did not seem necessary to fall back upon a further 
life to come. But it has evidently been a part of the 
order of revelation that one lesson should be learnt 
thoroughly before passing on to another. The very 
form of the Book of Job, a dialogue in which the 
speakers take different sides, ensures the thorough- 
ness of the lesson. A more earnest wrestling with a 
deep and difficult problem, a stricter testing of all 
the side lights thrown upon it by current beliefs, a 
stronger effort to get nearer to the central truth, was 
not possible at that stage of revelation. And all this 
searching of heart was the best guarantee that the 
step in advance with which it ends should be no 
unstable footing, but firmly and well taken. 


1 Dr. A. B. Davidson in Book by Book, p. 180. 


206 7Κ΄. The Law and the Hagtographa. 


The Book of Job is of course splendid poetry; and 
the poetry enhances its effectiveness and value ; but it 
does not constitute its inspiration. The inspiration 
lies deeper down in that strong religious sense, that 
active energy of religion, which determines the course 
at once of thought and of imagination. If we believe, 
as the Christian does believe, that our life is sur- 
rounded as if by a circumambient ether of spiritual 
influence in which all alike live and move and have 
their being, but which becomes stronger in the indi- 
vidual in proportion as he is fitted to receive it; if we 
believe, as we may fairly do from the products which 
lie before us at this day, that there have been ages 
and regions in which for the accomplishment of some 
larger purpose God has willed that this spiritual in- 
fluence should be as it were focussed and concentrated ; 
then we shall not hesitate to say that the age and the 
region in which were composed these books of the 
fTagiographa, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, certainly 
came under that description. It is not merely that an 
individual here and there is touched by a stronger 
prompting, but we feel that there is a sympathetic 
movement behind the individual. Of course then, as 
at all times, Israel, the nation, was like a drag-net 
which gathered in of every kind both bad and good; 
but there was so large a nucleus of religious minds 
deeply impressed by certain fundamental truths that 
they acted and reacted upon each other. Their work 
seems to come with a mass and volume which is not 
merely that of single units. In this respect there is 
a decided gain now that it has come to be understood 


Job. 207 


how much of the religious history of Israel is anony- 
mous, so that especially in books like the Psalter and 
Proverbs we find ourselves compassed about by a very 
‘cloud of witnesses. And even within the narrower 
limits of the Book of Job, the almost general agree- 
ment that the speeches of Elihu are to be separated 
from the rest of the poem, and the fact that (as we 
have seen) there are several psalms which treat of 
the same subject, remind us that we are in the 
presence not of isolated speculations and aspirations, 
but of a connected movement of thought setting in 
one direction. 

Here no less than in the case of the Prophets it is 
right to insist on an external objective cause for the 
phenomena we are considering. It is not that holy 
men of old took upon themselves to speak, but they 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The 
reasons why we insist on this may be reduced in brief 
to three: (1) the very gradual way in which the 
prophetic inspiration, the nature of which is clear, 
shades off into that of the other books, the nature of 
which is more obscure ; (2) the difficulty of otherwise 
accounting for the wide interval which separates the 
religious products of Israel from those of the nations 
round, allied as many of them were by blood and 
civilization ; and (3) the fact that the character of these 
products, as they have come down to us, by no means 
gives the lie to but rather tends decidedly to confirm 
the view, which early became established and has kept 
its hold ever since, that they owe their origin to the 


Spirit of God. 


208 LV. The Law and the Hagtographa. 


Still there are no doubt well-marked grades of 
inspiration in the Canon; and there are some books 
which have their place quite upon the outskirts of it, 
and one or two in which inspiration is hardly per- 
ceptible at all. Ido not include in this number the 
Book of Ecclesiastes, for which I am under no temp- 
tation to apologize, as it has become almost the 
custom to do. Of course it is not to be contended 
that Ecclesiastes is on the highest plane of Old Testa- 
ment revelation, still less on that of the New; but 
it has a plane of its own. Just as there was room 
and more than room for a St. Thomas among the 
Apostles, so also there is a fitting place for this grave 
and austere thinker among the wise men of Israel. 
Two things are conspicuous about him. First his 
absolute sincerity. He looks out into the world, and 
he sets down unflinchingly what he sees. He will 
not prophesy smooth things. His experience must 
have been really narrow and unfortunate: he had 
fallen upon evil days: but he will not gloss over 
unpalatable truth, or paint it otherwise than it is pre- 
sented to him. Nor is his gloomy view of things due 
to morbid self-consciousness, as with so many of the 
moderns who might claim kinship with him. He does 
not taste ‘with the distempered appetite’ of self-love. 
His natural bent was towards melancholy. But he 
deals with it honestly; and so it was that his eyes 
were opened to see something of the hidden meaning 
in the darker side of life. ‘It is better to go to the 
house of mourning than to go to the house of feast- 
ing: for that is the end of all men; and the living 


Ecclesiastes. 209 


will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter ; 
for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is 
made better’ (or ‘glad’). ‘The heart of the wise 
is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools 
is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the 
rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song 
of fools’ (Eccles. vii. 2-5). The author of this book 
was no shallow or feeble soul; and his book is bracing 
as well as moving. It contains other noble sayings 
which have not I think always had justice done to 
them. 

For the second striking fact seems to be this, that 
in spite of all his perplexities the author still comes 
back to the simple faith of Israel. The end of the 
matter is with him still, ‘to fear God and keep His 
commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man’ 
(Eccles. xii. 13). Iam aware that this and other ex- 
pressions of the like kind have been rejected as inter- 
polations, but I have little doubt that they are genuine. 
For these reasons. (1) If the book had been originally 
without the saving clauses, it is more probable that it 
would have been left out of the Canon altogether 


1 Among these is Eccles. v. 2, so magnificently applied by Hooker, 
Eccl. Pol.i. 2.2. It may be true that the God of Ecclesiastes is 
a severe and distant God, and not ‘our Father which is in heaven.’ 
But the lesson of religious awe needs to be learnt first; and it greatly 
deepens the sense of Fatherhood to remember that He who condescends 
to be called by that name is none other than the ‘ High and Lofty One, 
that inhabiteth eternity.’ Nor does it detract from the value of the 
principle which the Preacher enunciates that it is concerned in the 
context with a minor matter of vows. We are I fear in danger of 
giving way to a sentiment which shrinks from the austere side of 
religion. 

Ρ 


210 “Γ΄, The Law and the Hagiographa. 


than fitted for inclusion in it by their insertion. A 
pious scribe would have passed it by. (2) It seems to 
me to be psychologically more probable, especially in 
a son of Israel, that he should have this reserve in the 
bottom of his soul than that he should give way to 
blank and unredeemed pessimism. And (3), as Cornill 
truly says, the thought is not confined to the suspected 
passages but runs through the whole book’. The 
same writer well remarks that this feature in the book, 
its fidelity to the leading principles of Israel’s religion, 
is the greatest triumph of which that religion can 
boast?. To probe to the bottom the misery of the 
world, to find nothing but chaos and unsolved enigmas, 
to follow the logic of thought wherever it leads, and 
yet suddenly to stop short of the obvious conclusion, 
that there is no God and no moral government of 
the world at all, but instead to fall back on the simple 
plain practical duties of religion, shows how strong 
was the hold which those duties had and how hard 
it was to shake an Israelite’s faith. 

And for this reason we may be glad to have Eccle- 
siastes included in our Canon, because of the assurance 
which it gives that even a pessimist may have a place 
in the kingdom of heaven. It is possible to go down 
to the grave without a smile; it is possible not to 
shake off the burden of the mystery in all its oppres- 
sive weight to the end, and yet provided there is no 
tampering with conscience or with primary truth, to 
be held worthy to help and teach even from the pages 


1 Einl. p. 250. 2 Ibid. p. 248. 


The Song of Songs. 211 


of Holy Writ those who have a like experience and 
like difficulties. 


Almost in many ways at the opposite pole to Eccle- 
siastes is the Song of Songs. The author is no 
pessimist, ‘ sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’ 
He is one who enters keenly into life and whose 
blood courses warmly in his veins. The Song of 
Songs, as it is now understood, is just an idyll of 
faithful human love, and nothing more. It is never 
quoted in the New Testament, and contributes nothing 
to the sum of revelation. Its place in our Bibles is 
due to a method of interpretation which is now very 
generally abandoned. What are we to say to such 
a book? There can be no question of inspiration, as 
we have so far understood it, even in the case of 
Ecclesiastes. The question rather is whether we can 
see any Providential purpose which has been served 
by the inclusion, and which is still served by the 
retention, of the book in the Canon. I think we may 
discern such a purpose. If we were forming a Canon 
ourselves for the first time and the book were pre- 
sented to us, we should probably say, with all admira- 
tion for its beauty, that it was not beauty of such a 
kind as we should associate with Sacred Scripture. 
But now that it has been in the Canon so many cen- 
turies the position is different. In the first place, we 
may welcome it as a proof of the catholicity of Scrip- 
ture. Δ τ humani a se alienum putat. As now under- 
stood the book does teach a moral lesson. When it is 


seen that the persons in the drama besides the chorus 
P 2 


212 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


are three and not two, and that the heroine of the 
story resists the advances of a powerful monarch in 
order to be true to her shepherd-lover, the picture 
which results is simple and beautiful and worthy of 
its poetical setting. The poem, as it stands in the 
Canon, is not only a consecration of human love, 
but also a consecration of the love of nature. It 
sets its seal upon that open receptive sympathetic 
spirit to which all the works of the Lord are good 
and made for man to take his delight in. 

A further consequence of the inclusion of the book 
in the Canon is that the ideas which it expresses 
have been shielded from profanation, and as it were 
set apart for holy uses. I do not think that we need 
deprecate the allegorical use of the Song of Songs, 
so long as it is quite understood that this is not 
its original meaning. We often apply the great 
sayings of poets and imaginative writers in senses 
which were not originally intended, but which are 
not the less apt and beautiful. And there is a 
special reason why we should do so here, because 
the Church has for so many centuries specially 
singled out the Song for this mode of interpreta- 
tion. There is pertinence in the criticism ‘that the 
Song is only allegorical in so far as all true marriage 
to a religious mind is allegorical!’ But not ‘all true 
marriage’ has been fitted for such a use by having 
the same veil of sanctity thrown over it. 


If the Canon of the Old Testament is anywhere 


1 Expesitor, 1892, i. 253. Compare Driver, Zn/rod. p. 423 f. 


Esther. 213 


at fault it is in regard to the Look of Esther. It 
is not probable that the book is strictly historical, 
though it is also not a pure romance like Judith and 
Tobit. The writer has a good knowledge of Persian 
manners and customs; in particular he seems to be 
familiar with the life of the Court, and the character 
of Ahasuerus (Xerxes) is in accordance with history. 
But there is reason to think that the account of the 
origin of the name given to the Feast of Purim is 
not correct!; and if so, the interval between the 
composition of the book and the events of which 
it treats must have been considerable. In that in- 
terval there was time for a nucleus of tradition to 
assume the rounded literary shape in which it is pre- 
sented to us. 

In spite of some opposition at first the book became 
very popular among the later Jews? It played skil- 
fully upon that form of patriotism the motto of which 
is ‘Love thy friend and hate thine enemy.’ Accord- 
ing to it the Jews were not the victims but the actors 
in a sort of Sicilian Vespers in which no less than 
75,000 of the population hostile to them fell. The 
numbers are sufficient to relieve the national con- 
science of this stain. 

But whatever attraction the book may have had 
for the Jews, it could have but little for the Christian. 
Accordingly we find that it was the last of all the 


* This inference is based upon a treatise by Lagarde, referred to 
by Driver, Zutrod. p. 455; Cheyne, Lxfos. 1892, i. 260; Robertson 
Smith, O. 7. 7. C. p. 184 ἡ. 

* Ryle, Canon, p. 199 f., compared with Driver, Znérod. p. 452. 


214 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


books in the Hebrew Canon to obtain sanction in 
the Church. It was omitted from the list of Melito, 
placed last on that of Origen, relegated to the class 
of ἀναγινωσκόμενα by Athanasius, omitted by Gregory 
Nazianzen and by Amphilochius,—who notes however 
that it was ‘added by some,—omitted again later by 
Leontius, and classed among the disputed books by 
Nicephorus. 

It is not quite clear what was the origin of this 
prolonged resistance—how much of it was due to the 
original omission in the list of Melito, propagated 
through the History of Eusebius, in which case it 
would be a survival of the early Jewish opposition 
to the book; or how much is to be set down to 
direct objection to its character and contents. There 
was certainly room for such objection. The Book 
of Esther derives no sanction from the New Testa- 
ment. It has often been pointed out that it does 
not even name the name of God; and it adds nothing 
to the sum of revelation!. The book, as we have 
seen, after a time secured its place in the Jewish 
Canon, and through the Jewish passed over into the 
Christian Canon, but more we may believe by way 
of tacit acquiescence than of active approval. Its 
reception was doubtless helped by the typical inter- 
pretation according to which the deliverance of the 
Jews stood for a deliverance of the Church 3, 


* See however for a different estimate of this book Additional 
Note B: Zhe Religious Value of the Book of Esther. 

* Hieron. £7. liii. Ad Paulinum, § 8 (ed. Migne, i. 547): Lsther 
in Ecclesiae typo populum liberat de periculo, et interfecto Aman, 


Daniel. 215 


The Book of Daniel again brings up the question 
of authorship. And here too it is difficult not to 
feel that the critical view has won the day. The 
human mind will in the end accept that theory which 
covers the greatest number of particular facts and 
harmonizes best with the sum total of knowledge. 
Now in regard to the Book of Daniel these conditions 
appear to be far better satisfied by the supposition 
that the book was written in the second century B.c. 
than in the sixth’, (1) It is found that the writer’s 
acquaintance with the history of the earlier period 
is imperfect, but that it becomes more and more 
exact as he approaches the times of Antiochus 
Epiphanes (176-164 B.c.). (2) Hebrew philologists 
are clear in their opinion that the language of the 
book favours the later date. Two points in this 
part of the evidence can be appreciated by those 
who are not Hebraists. There occur in the book 
no less than three names of musical instruments 
which are Greek and not Hebrew or Aramaic. But 
although it is barely conceivable that these names 
might have become naturalized in the East as early 
qui interpretatur iniquitas, partes convivit et diem celebrem mittil in 
posteros. 

1 On the details of the evidence which follows see the Lu/roductions, 
especially those of Driver and Cornill, the scholarly edition by Mr. 
A. A. Bevan, Cambridge, 1892, and a pamphlet by Kamphausen, Das 
Buch Daniel und die neuere Geschichisforschung, Leipzig, 1893. But 
even the most moderate critics now take this side—Delitzsch, Riehm, 
Strack, von Orelli, Schlottmann, and others (Driver, p. 483). Even 
those who (like Meinhold in Strack and Zéckler’s Kurzggef. Kommentar) 


assign part of the book to an earlier date, place the later chapters in 
the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. 


216 [Γ΄ The Law and the Hagtographa. 


as the sixth century, it is far more probable that 
they would be introduced by the conquests of Alex- 
ander. We have also the strange fact that in a book 
supposed to belong to the age of Nebuchadnezzar 
the name ‘Chaldaean’ is used not for the imperial 
nation itself but for a class of astrologers or sooth- 
sayers (Dan. ii. 2) 4, Ὁ; το) Seay, (3) here meme 
notable silence in regard to the existence of the 
book from the sixth century to the second, but from 
the second century onwards it exercised the greatest 
influence over all succeeding literature. (4) There is 
the place of the book in the Jewish Canon—not as 
in our Bibles among the Prophets next after Ezekiel, 
but in a place to itself, nearly at the end of the 
Hagiographa. This seems to show that the book 
was not written until the Canon of the Prophets was 
closed. 

If we follow these indications we are obliged to 
conclude, that the name of Daniel is only assumed, 
and that the real author is unknown, but that he 
lived under Antiochus Epiphanes, and that he wrote, 
as some critics would say precisely, in the early 
part of the year 164 Β. 6.1 The first question then 
which I must consider put to me is, How it is 
compatible with the character of a Sacred Book to 
bear a name which does not by strict right belong 
to it. We ought indeed to have discussed this 
question before, because although the Book of Job 
no doubt does not claim to have been written by the 
patriarch, the name of the author is assumed probably 


1 So Cornill, Lind. p. 258 f.; Cheyne, Bampton Lectures, p. Xxxvi. 


Daniel. 217 


in the case of the Book of Jonah, and certainly in that 
of Ecclesiastes. The last-named book is a good 
example of the real significance of this assumption. 
The author speaks of himself under three names, 
as Solomon, as ‘the Preacher!) and as one of the 
“wise men’ (Eccles. xii.9, 11). The last is evidently 
his true designation. The first is a disguise so 
transparent as to be no disguise at all. 

The use of assumed names marks the last stage 
in the formation of the Jewish Canon?. Once more 
we must remember how lightly the Hebrews thought 
of authorship. Their writers had absolutely no per- 
sonal ambition. The ‘wise man’ who wrote Eccle- 
siastes did not in the least care to be known as the 
author of a striking book; he dd care to put forward 
certain lessons, the fruit of much thought and ripe 
experience, which might be of use to others besides 
himself. But by this time the Jews were beginning 
to look with a jealous eye upon all writings which 
claimed to speak with authority. The Law had long 
been recognised as a Sacred Book. The writings 
of the ancient prophets and teachers were being 
collected and diligently and reverently studied. How 
was a book like Ecclesiastes to gain a hearing among 
them? The author had recourse to the simple device 
of heading his work with the name of the typical 
Sage or ‘Wise man, the first and greatest of his 
order. In spite of this it was a long time before 


1 On this title see especially Driver, Zztrod., p. 437. 
2 See Additional Note C: Zhe Origin and Character of Pseudo- 
nymous Literature among the Jews. 


218 LV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


the book obtained assured recognition. The question 
of authorship hardly arose. If the book was doubted 
it was on account of its contents, and not because 
it was or was not written by Solomon. The fact 
that it bore Solomon’s name seems to have had 
just the effect of gaining for it a hearing, and then 
to have dropped entirely into the background. 

So again with the Book of Daniel. The author 
lived at the time of the Maccabaean struggle. His 
whole soul went out into that struggle, and he 
earnestly desired to say a word of encouragement 
and exhortation to the little band who were rallying 
round the law of their fathers. First, he wished to 
give them examples of steadfast loyalty to that law, 
and an assurance that God would be with those who 
were true to it even under bitter persecution. To 
this purpose of his there were features in the tradi- 
tional story of Daniel which appeared to lend them- 
selves ; and so he took that story and worked it up 
in the way which seemed to him most effective. He 
may have had written materials before him—probably 
he had?!; but what he sat down to write himself was 
not history, but a homily addressed to the patriots 
to strengthen their courage and faith under the trials 
to which they were exposed. 


1 On several points the Book of Daniel receives rather striking, if 
partial, confirmation. Such would be, the name Belshazzar (which 
however really belonged, not to the king, but to the crown-prince), 
and in a less degree those of Shadrach, Abednego, Arioch, Nebuchad- 
nezzar’s buildings (Kamphausen, w/ sup., p. 10), and (also very 
partially) his madness (see especially Schrader, Cunesform Inscriptions, 
i, 125 ff..2. 171): 


Daneel. 219 


But there was more in his mind than this. He 
was fired with the grandest of all the hopes which 
his nation had ever entertained. The belief in a 
coming Messiah had taken hold of him. To most 
onlookers the rising under the Maccabees must have 
seemed a desperate sacrifice of noble lives. To him 
it bore the certainty of victory. What were these 
mighty empires which in their pride lifted up them- 
selves against the Lord and against His people? 
They were like that colossal figure, mingled of gold, 
silver, brass, iron, and clay. A stone ‘cut without 
hands’ should strike it and it should be broken in 
pieces, while the stone grew into a mountain and filled 
the whole earth (ch. ii). Again, they were like four 
strange and powerful beasts, the last armed with ten 
horns and a little horn, stronger and more wicked 
than his fellows. But another scene succeeds. The 
thrones of judgment are set and the Ancient of Days 
takes His seat. The beast is slain; and there is 
brought before Him ‘one like unto a son of man’ 
who receives an everlasting dominion (ch. vii). There 
are other visions to the same general effect. The 
author of the Book of Daniel looked for a solution 
of the troubles amongst which he lived in the coming 
of the Messianic Kingdom. This was not conceived 
exactly in the sense in which his expectation was 
fulfilled, but was closely identified with the nation 
of Israel. As in other parts of prophecy, the ful- 
filment surpassed the anticipation. But among all 
the many threads of prophetic forecast which were 
drawn together and brought to realization by Christ 


2200 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. 


there was none which so struck the imagination of 
His contemporaries, and none which has left a more 
conspicuous, if others have left a deeper mark upon 
Christian theology. 

The belief of the Hebrew prophets was true. There 
is One Whom all things in heaven and earth obey ; 
Who makes use of instruments on which may be 
traced here and there the flaws of human imperfec- 
tion; and Who guides the course of history by ways 
which not even the wisest can wholly know, to ends 
which not even the most inspired can wholly see, 
until they are suddenly displayed in all their glorious 
perfection. 


Notes to Lecture IV. 221 


NOTE VA: 
The Pre-Mosaic History in the Pentateuch. 


ONE of the great problems in connexion with the Book of 
Genesis is the question as to the origin of those portions 
which point to some sort of contact with Babylonia (the 
stories of the Creation and the Flood, and the Kings of the 
East in Gen. xiv). The dominant tendency in the critical 
school—at least among the more advanced critics—is to 
regard this contact as taking place in historic times, after the 
Exile or during the later Monarchy. But the accumulating 
evidence, of which the Tell-el-Amarna tablets are the last and 
in some ways the greatest instalment, of the spread of 
Babylonian culture over Western Asia as far as the shores 
of the Mediterranean at a period long anterior to the Israelite 
conquest of Canaan seems to make the other hypothesis 
distinctly more probable, that the stories in question really 
go back to this period, and that they were no mere superficial 
importation, but that they represent an ancient deposit long 
assimilated and thoroughly recast by the Hebrew mind under 
the influence of Revelation. The data in Gen. xiv. are of 
course different in character from the Cosmogony and the 
story of the Deluge, but in view of the picture presented by 
the Tell-el-Amarna tablets it seems to me quite possible 
that they may be derived from some archaic record, treasured 
up on the soil of Palestine itself. We may believe that there 
is a real historical kernel in the narrative without claiming 
that the narrative as a whole is strictly historical. 


222 Notes to Lecture IV. 


A somewhat similar question arises as to the Egyptian 
details in the later chapters. I confess that I have never 
been satisfied with the view that they are to be accounted 
for solely by the relations between Israel and Egypt in the 
early period of the Monarchy. It may be seen by any of 
the critical analyses (in that of Addis’s Documents of the Hexa- 
tcuch, i. 70 ff, the facts are brought out very clearly) that the 
narrative rests on two fundamental documents which are at 
once distinct and independent of each other, the one belong- 
ing to the Northern Kingdom and the other to the Southern, 
and yet present a large amount of substantial resemblance. 
This resemblance points back to a ground stock of tradition, 
which must be older—and considerably older—than its two 
divergent branches. And the genuine Egyptian element is 
found in this as well as in the later ramifications. 

But even upon these assumptions it is a delicate and 
difficult matter to decide how far the Book of Genesis is 
historically verifiable. I doubt whether even the specialists 
are as yet quite in a position to do so. But I fear that 
I could not for myself go the whole way with Mr. Watson in 
his little book, Zhe Book Genesis a true History, London, 
1892. 


NOTE B. 
The Religious Value of the Book of Esther. 


I AM anxious to correct as far as possible whatever may be 
subjective and due to imperfect appreciation in these lectures; 
and therefore I gladly avail myself of permission to print 
a Criticism of the remarks in the text by Mr. Lock. He 
writes as follows :— 

‘Esther was the first book of the Bible I learnt to care for 
as a child; so I feel inclined to resent any undervaluing of 


Note B. 223 


it, and should like to ask these questions about your para- 
graph :— 

‘(a) Is there any evidence for direct (Christian) objection to 
its character and contents? 

“(6) If not, is it well to suggest that there may ave been, 
when the survival of Jewish opposition would quite adequately 
explain the facts?—[It is rarely that the arguments for or 
against a book are definitely formulated. But I doubt if 
the omission of the book from Christian lists is adequately 
accounted for by the survival of Jewish opposition, because 
by the time of these lists its position in the Jewish Canon 
was assured, and it was read regularly at the feast of Purim. 
And the objections from a Christian point of view lay so 
near at hand that it is difficult to think of them as not 
operating consciously or unconsciously. | 

‘(c) Is it not true that “without adding to the sense of 
revelation,” yet it furnishes one of the most striking illus- 
trations of God’s over-ruling Providence in History? and 
may it not be taken as a great example to Christians whose 
lot has fallen among those who are not Christians? For 
though there is no naming of the name of God, yet there is 
a deep sense of personal vocation to do His work; there is 
a faith in self-sacrificing intercession; and a type of courage, 
loyalty, and patriotism such as is scarcely found elsewhere in 
the Bible.—|It will I think be agreed that the main lesson of 
the book, which culminates in ch. iv. 10-16, is here very 
happily described. And this lesson may perhaps reconcile 
us to the position of the book within the Canon. If deduc- 
tions have to be made for the sequel in ch. ix. 5-19, similar 
deductions have to be made in other books (e.g. for Ps. 
cix). ] 

“(4) Could it not then be put on the same level with Ruth, 
with Philemon? Can they be said to add to the sum of 
revelation ?’ 


224 Notes to Lecture IV. 


NOTE. ©. 


The origin and character of Pseudonymous Literature 
among the Jews. 


IT would seem that among the Jews the composition of 
pseudonymous books had its rise on the one hand in the very 
subordinate position of the idea of literary property, and on 
the other hand in the strong sense of the continuity and 
solidarity which pervaded the order of prophets and of 
priests, and the class of the ‘Wise men.’ Priest and prophet 
were alike so conscious of deriving their own legitimation 
from Moses, they had such a firm belief in the Mosaic origin 
of the institutions which had come down to them, the au- 
thority of those institutions seemed so directly traceable to 
the Word of the Lord spoken to Moses, that when it came 
to them to amplify and expand the code as they found it 
so as to bring it into further agreement with the traditional 
practice of their own day, it seemed to them natural to treat 
the whole of this customary law as homogeneous and de- 
livered through the same channel at the same time. 

A similar mode of feeling led to the attribution of later 
religious poetry to David and of later Wisdom-literature to 
Solomon. Judged by our standard this attribution was not 
justified. It is also true that the ancients were not them- 
selves so indifferent to the moral character of literary im- 
personation as is sometimes supposed (see on this point 
especially the first of two articles by Prof. J. S. Candlish in 
The Expositor, 1891, ii. 91 ff, 262 ff.). Still it must be 
remembered that truthfulness has been a virtue of slow 
growth. Some forms of intellectual sincerity have hardly had 
full recognition before our own day. And there are many 
steps and stages as we make our way backwards. There is 
no greater difficulty in regard to this than there is in regard 
to other limitations and qualifications which mark the pro- 


Note C. 225 


gress of Revelation. The case is somewhat similar to that 
of the patriarchs and others, who though in the main repre- 
sented as good and holy men, and though not unaware of the 
duty of truthfulness, do not strictly observe it. So, although 
it cannot be said that the authors of books like Ecclesiastes 
and Daniel had no intention of obtaining, and did not as 
a matter of fact obtain, greater authority for their works by 
giving them names which did not belong to them, and 
although it would also have been admitted that such action 
was not strictly right, still it was also not greatly condemned, 
at least not so much condemned that otherwise good men 
might not fall into it. 

But the fact of pseudonymous attribution, even within the 
circle of books now included in the Canon, seems to be so 
clearly proved and to be in the stronger cases (e.g. Ecclesi- 
astes) so generally acknowledged that no antecedent objection 
can be taken to it as a hypothesis where the grounds for it, 
though less absolutely conclusive, are yet distinctly pre- 
ponderating. 


LEC PURELY: 


THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A 
COLLECTION OF SACRED BOOKS. 


‘Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, 
that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever. —/sazah xxx. 8. 
‘The Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms.’ 
St. Luke xxiv. 44. 


I. Tue first stone of the Bible may be said to have 
been laid when the religious teachers of Israel, men 
endowed as we have seen with special gifts for the 
discharge of a special mission, began to commit 
the substance of what they taught to writing; when 
the authority of the spoken word passed over to the 
written word; and when there began to be not only 
inspired men but inspired books, the constituent parts 
—at first scattered but by degrees brought together— 
of an inspired volume or Bible. 

The change from speech to writing was in its 
consequences most momentous. It is due to it that 
the teachers of Israel have been enabled to give the 
law to far-off generations and to races of men dis- 
persed throughout the whole world. But in essence 
and idea the change was a very small one. It was 
in fact no change at all. The authority of the word 


The Written Word. 224 


.tten was precisely the same as that of the word 
poken, neither less nor more. It was inherent in 
the person who wrote or spoke, and was derived from 
i. . special action upon that person of the Spirit of 
God. Whether he wrote or whether he spoke made 
no difference to those who were first addressed, 
though the fixing of authoritative speech in authori- 
tative writing established a permanent centre of vast 
and ever-widening influence in after-time. 

We ask therefore, When did this change, at once 
so small and so stupendous, take place? The Critical 
School would assign it to two great moments in the 
history of Israel: (1) the moment at which the 
prophets of action made way for the writing prophets, 
2. 6. according to the current view, when Amos and 
Hosea succeeded to Elijah and Elisha in the middle 
of the eighth century; and (2) at the promulgation 
of the Deuteronomic Law by Josiah in the year 
621 B.C. 

‘The question, says Wellhausen, ‘why it was that 
Elijah and Elisha committed nothing to writing while 
Amos a hundred years later is an author, hardly 
admits of any other answer than that in the interval 
a non-literary had developed into a literary age!’ 
And Professor Ryle, speaking of Deuteronomy, writes : 
‘It is not till the year 621 B.c., the eighteenth year of 
the reign of King Josiah, that the history of Israel 


1 Sketch of Hist. of Isr. and Jud. p. 71. As Elisha lived till the 
reign of Joash (797-782 8.6.) and Amos prophesied under Jero- 
boam II, the successor of Joash (781-741 B.c.), the interval between 
the two must have been less than fifty years; but that is a detail. 


Q 2 


223 Κ΄. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


- presents us with the first instance of “a book,” which 
was regarded by all, king, priests, prophets, and 
people alike, as invested not only with sanctity, but 
also with supreme authority in all matters of religion 
and conduct*.’ 

In any case these are epoch-making events, land- 
marks of great importance in the history of the Bible. 
But just as the ceremonial laying of the first stone is 
as a rule not the actual beginning of the building to 
which it belongs, so here we may well ask ourselves 
whether these two events which stand out con- 
spicuously above the surface are the true beginnings 
of the Bible, the one of the Canon of the Prophets, 
the other of the Canon of the Law. 

Perhaps we ought to acquiesce in the former of the 
two dates, though with a less trenchant distinctness 
than is ascribed to it by Wellhausen. Whatever it 
may really mark, the interval between Elisha and 
Amos does not mark the first beginnings of a literary 
age. Writing we know to have been much older. 
The Tell-el-Amarna? tablets date from the fifteenth 
century B.c.; and although they are in another script, 
it is not likely that a fully developed writing-hand 
should be current in Palestine without having any 
effect upon the native character. The Moabite stone 
shows that this was not the case; or at least that 
Hebrew writing too was fully developed quite a 

Σ᾿ Canon of Ὁ. T. p. 47. 

* A writer in Zhe Academy, March 4, 1893, p. 204, proposes to 
substitute Tel-beni-Amran; but Professor Sayce defends the older 


name, in the vernacular form which he adopts, Tel-el-Amarna (zdrd., 
April 8, p. 310). 


Beginnings of Written Prophecy. 229 


century—we know not how much more—before 
Amos. Nor can it be assumed that writing was 
only used upon a hard material like stone. For 
there was in any case a mass of literature in existence 
long before Amos and Hosea: not only scattered 
songs like those incorporated in the Book of Numbers’, 
or the Song of Deborah, which might have been 
handed down for some time orally, but collections of 
such songs, the Book of Jasher and the Book of the 
Wars of the Lord; and not only these, but a quantity 
of historical writing, the early narratives embodied in 
the Books of Judges, Samuel and Kings, and the two 
great historical documents of the Pentateuch. . We 
have not, it is true, any extant prophetical book 
older than Amos. Some scholars assign an earlier 
date to the prophecies of Joel and Obadiah?; but 
I cannot avail myself of this opinion, because to the 
best of my judgment the arguments against the 
earlier date seem to preponderate*. Nothing of any 
real importance turns upon the question whether 
Amos and Hosea had writing predecessors, and there 
is no direct evidence that they had; still it would in 
some respects be strange if it were not so. We know 
that St. Paul, the first of New Testament authors, 
wrote letters which were lost before any which have 
survived*; and that is what we should have expected 
in the case of the prophets, There is nothing in the 


Nam. ΣΙ τς 153.57, 185° 2η--20: 

2. Including Prof. Kirkpatrick (Doctrine of the Prophets, pp. 34 ff., 
57 f.). 

* As stated (e.¢.) by Dr. Driver. * See below, p. 335. 


29. Κ΄. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


least tentative about the prophecy of Amos and 
Hosea. Neither as literature nor as religious teaching 
does it bear the marks of an age of beginnings. 
Jerome’s criticism of Amos as vusticus sermone seems 
to have been wholly ἃ 2710γ1, based upon his rustic 
origin and calling. We are assured that, on the 
contrary, his style is pure and classical?. We can in 
fact see for ourselves even in the English version 
that he is no unpractised writer. His literary dress 
sits easily upon him; he is not like one wearing 
armour which had not been proved. The formulae 
which are characteristic of the prophetic writing are 
all there, without any hint that they are newly 
coined*, The religious ideas are such as must have 
had a long history behindthem. The fusion of morality 
and religion is complete. And not only does the 
prophet himself teach very exalted doctrine, but he 
assumes that it will be understood by those to whom 
it is addressed; the nation itself must have had a 
long discipline ὃ, 

But although we may conjecture that there were 
writing prophets before Amos, we cannot prove it. 

1 Driver, Zntrod. p. 297. 

? Such for instance as the opening words, ‘The words of Amos .. . 
which he saw concerning Israel,’ &c. (4 Is. i. 1, ‘The vision of 
Isaiah .. . which he saw’; Hab. i. 1, ‘The burden which Habakkuk 
the prophet did see, &c.); ‘Thus saith the Lord’ (Amos i. 3, 6, 9, 
11, 13, &c.); ‘Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken’ (Amos 
Wats: Cl. JV. I, Veoh) aes 

5. Stress is very justly laid on these points by Dr. A. B. Davidson in 
two articles.in Zhe Laxposrfor, 1887, i. 161 ff., ii. 161 ff. The whole 


argument as to the presuppositions of the early prophets is fully 
worked out by Professor James Robertson, Lazrd Lectures, pp. 50-166. 


Beginnings of Written Law. 231 


We must therefore content ourselves with pointing 
out that, so far as the authority with which he speaks 
is concerned, Amos had many predecessors. In this, 
acting prophets and writing prophets are as one. 
The history of the prophetic order does but repeat 
itself, Amos before Amaziah priest of Bethel (Amos 
vil. 10-17); Elijah before Ahab; Nathan before 
David; Samuel before Saul; the picture is in all its 
essential features the same. The embryonic germ 
of the Canon of Prophetic Scriptures is as old as 
Prophecy itself. Development of course there was 
in the teaching of the prophets; but all through 
their long line, the conception of Prophecy, as the 
Word of God, had nothing added to it. It is as 
complete in Moses as in Malachi. As seen at the 
time, the change from speech to writing was little 
more than an accident, though it was made to serve 
a mighty purpose. 

The existence of writing prophets before Amos 
must be regarded as uncertain. Perhaps it is probable 
that if there had been such we should have heard 
more of them. But however that may be, there can 
be no question about the Law. Traces of law com- 
mitted to writing and accepted by the people as 
authoritative go back far beyond Josiah. No doubt 
the promulgation of the Deuteronomic Code by that 
king was a very striking event. When we look at it we 
soon see that the promulgation of what is now be- 
lieved to be the full (or nearly the full) Pentateuchal 
legislation by Ezra and Nehemiah in the year 444 B.c. 
is really modelled upon it. The later scene is an 


22 Κ΄. Ihe Old Testament as a Collection. 


amplified counterpart of the earlier. But again we 
have to ask whether that in its turn does not bear the 
same sort of relation to an earlier event still. In 
order quite to appreciate the state of the case we need 
to have the scene under Josiah set before us. ‘And the 
king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders 
of Judah and of Jerusalem. And the king went up to 
the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and 
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the 
priests and the prophets and all the people, both small 
and great: and he read in their ears all the words of 
the book of the covenant which was found in the 
house of the Lord. And the king stood by the 
pillar (ov on the platform, R.V. marg.), and made a 
covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and 
to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and 
His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to 
confirm the words of this covenant that were written 
in this book: and all the people stood to the cove- 
nant.’ It is one of those ideal moments sometimes 
reached in history when a thrill of high resolve has 
passed through king or leaders and people, and all 
alike have risen to the full consciousness of their 
vocation. 

But now let us see if there is nothing like it. And 
first let us fix our attention upon the ceremonial of 
the promulgation, Rather more than two centuries 
before, in the coup a’état which overthrew the usurping 
queen Athaliah, another graphic scene is presented to 
us. The young king Joash is brought out of his 


‘ ie 
2 Kings xxiii. 1-3. 


Beginnings of Written Law. 233 


hiding, and the guards collected together by a strata- 
gem for that purpose are ranged round him; and the 
high-priest Jehoiada puts upon him ‘the crown and 
the testimony’; and he is anointed, amid shouts and 
clapping of hands. Then we read that ‘when Atha- 
liah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, 
she came to the people into the house of the Lord: 
and she looked, and, behold, the king stood by the 
pillar (ov on the platform, R.V. marg.), as the manner 
was, and the captains and the trumpets by the king; 
and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with 
trumpets. And then a little later: ‘And Jehoiada 
made a covenant between the Lord and the king and 
the people, that they should be the Lord’s people; 
between the king also and the people 1. 

The one thing which is wanting here is the ‘ Book 
of the Law.’ For its place is hardly taken by the 
‘testimony’ (ver. 12), both the reading and meaning 
of which is disputed*. Otherwise the ceremonial is 
extremely like that which accompanies the promulga- 
tion of Deuteronomy; the king standing ‘by the 
pillar’ (or ‘on the platform ’—the same word with the 
same ambiguity), and the solemn covenant of king and 
people with Jehovah. 

But a parallel for the ‘ Book of the Law’ is not far 
to seek. We have already had occasion to speak of 
the Book of the Covenant, the oldest of all the Pen- 
tateuchal Codes. This book is incorporated in one 


1 2 Kings xi. 12-14, 17. 
* Several critics substitute ‘bracelets,’ as an emblem of royalty 


(Q. P. B., ad loc.). 


22 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


of the two primitive documents, the Elohistic or the 
Jehovistic 1, it is not certain which ; and one or other 
of them contains an account of its solemn acceptance 
by the people. First sacrifices are offered, and the 
altar is sprinkled with a part of the blood; and then 
the book is read in the audience of the people. ‘And 
they said, All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, 
and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and 
sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood 
of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you?.’ 
We do not take this as evidence for the time of Moses ; 
we take it as evidence for the age to which the docu- 
ments belong, z.e. in any case for a date earlier—we 
cannot say positively how much earlier—than 750 B.c. 
But at that date what element in the fundamental 
idea of Canonicity is missing? We have a book, a 
law-book, solemnly read and accepted by the people 
as binding ; and binding, because it comes from God. 
This is as far as we can go in the way of written 
documents, but the next step carries us back to Sinai 
itself. The narrative of the events which happened 
at Sinai is some centuries later than those events, and 
therefore cannot be guaranteed to represent them with 
literal accuracy. It is however, as we have seen, 
when we first meet with ita double narrative, woven 
together from two separate documents. One of these 


* Addis confidently claims the Book of the Covenant, with the 
whole of Ex. xxiv. 1-14, for the Elohist (Documents of the Hexateuch, 
i. 137 ff.); Driver refers it, with Ex. xxiv. 3-8, to the Jehovist; Socin 
does not discriminate. 

? Exod. xxiv. 5-8. 


The History of the Law. 235 


probably comes from the Northern Kingdom, the 
other from the Southern. They were composed in- 
dependently of each other. Yet in their general 
tenor they agree. Both alike describe the giving of 
the Law as associated with an awe-inspiring theo- 
phany. The event clearly had a strong hold upon 
the popular imagination.. Perhaps there are traces of 
a similar belief as early as the Song of Deborah', 
which would be a long stepping-stone towards the age 
of the Exodus and the Wanderings. But what is a 
theophany but the highest conception which the men 
of those days could form of a sanction investing that 
to which it was applied with inviolable sanctity ? 
I cannot undertake to say exactly what it was that 
God was pleased to reveal through Moses; but what- 
ever it was, it contained the germ and potentiality of all 
that was to follow, and we may be sure that from the 
very first it was accepted as coming from God Himself. 

There are then four stages in the history of the 
Law: (1) the actual beginnings, limited in extent and 
indeterminate in outline, which Moses was inspired to 
lay, of the Pentateuchal legislation, with its acceptance 
by the people; (2) the committal to writing of the 
Book of the Covenant, already regarded as heaven- 
given and binding upon the conscience; (3) the pro- 
mulgation of the Deuteronomic Code by Josiah in 
621 8B.c.; and (4) the final promulgation of the complete, 
or all but complete, body of Pentateuchal laws by Ezra 
and Nehemiah in 444 8.c. There is a common likeness 


1 Compare the Rev. G. A. Cooke’s excellent monograph, Zhe 
LHistory and Song of Deborah, Oxford, 1892, p. 31. 


236 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


running through each of these stages. They are all 
constructed on the same pattern. The body of laws 
is added to from time to time, and there is an increase 
in bulk in the later as compared with the earlier 
Codes. The committal to writing begins, so far as 
a critical analysis of the existing documents will carry 
us, with the Book of the Covenant. But the funda- 
mental idea which lies at the root of the Canon of the 
Law, the idea of a legislation given and received as 
coming from God and therefore absolutely binding 
upon the conscience, was present from the very first. 


II. In the case of the Law there was a more or 
less regular machinery, in the first place for the pre- 
servation, and afterwards for the multiplication, of the 
sacred writings. Their sacredness is implied in the 
fact that some of them at least were deposited with 
the ark in the Holy of Holies. For instance in 
regard to the Book of Deuteronomy, the Levites are 
commanded to take it and put it by the side of the 
ark of the covenant, that it might be there ‘for a 
witness against Israel?’ The priests were the proper 
custodians of the Law, and they were expected in 
certain cases to furnish copies of it. Thus the king 
for the time being is enjoined as soon as he succeeds 
to the throne to have a copy made of the law of the 
Monarchy from the standard exemplar which is in 
the charge of the priests, and he is to keep it by him 
and read in it as a perpetual reminder of his duties ”. 


? Deut. xxxi. 26. Compare 1 Sam. x. 25. 
2 Deut. xvii. 18-20. 


Transmission of Prophetic Writings. 237 


In the case of the prophets there was less security 
both for the safe-keeping of the original writings and 
for their regular transmission. The Book of Jeremiah 
in particular supplies us with more than one incidental 
glimpse of the history of a prophetic writing—the 
circumstances under which it was composed and pub-- 
lished, the authority with which it was received, and 
the risks it ran of mutilation or destruction. For 
twenty-three years after his call Jeremiah had confined 
himself to oral prophecy?. His prophecies had been 
delivered usually in some conspicuous public place, 
now just outside one of the gates of Jerusalem, now 
in the court of the temple?; but he had committed 
nothing to writing. It was not until the fourth year 
of Jehoiakim (605-4 B.c.) that he received an express 
command, conveyed to him like other Divine com- 
mands, to write down what he had spoken. We may 
note in passing that this long delay shows that 
written prophecy had by no means entirely superseded 
oral. It shows also that the prophets themselves 
were far from being aware of the full significance of 
the change. Nor could we have a better example 
of the action of that great overruling Providence of 
which the prophets were but instruments. There was 
a Power at work behind the Bible, the full designs of 
which were beyond the ken even of those who had 
the deepest insight into them. 

Jeremiah did not write himself, but dictated to 
his disciple Baruch, who wrote we may suppose on a 


1 Compare Jer. xxv. 1, 3, with xxxvi. 1 ff. 
ΠΕ ἘΚ 20) XKVI, 2. 


238 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


roll of roughly prepared leather’. Jeremiah is in 
hiding, but a year (or according to another reading, 
four years’) later Baruch is told to take the roll into 
the temple and read it to the assembled people. It 
is a special fast day, so that the temple is crowded, 
and Baruch takes his stand on the steps leading into 
the upper court, where his words will be well heard. 
The reading makes a profound impression. The 
princes hear of it, and the roll must go to the king. 
Jehoiakim reads in it a little way, but his anger gets 
the better of him. He takes up a scribe’s knife which 
lay near, cuts the roll into shreds, and throws them 
into the brazier which warmed the apartment in which 
he was sitting. The result is only that a second 
amplified copy is written in which the impending fate 
of Jehoiakim himself is described more plainly *. 
There is much to be learnt from this narrative. 
We infer not only from the long delay in writing down 
the earlier prophecies, but still more distinctly from 
the enlarged edition which tells us that there were 
added ‘many like words, that the prophets did not 
feel themselves strictly bound to a literal reproduction 
of their spoken addresses. We gather that the publi- 
cation of a book of prophecies might be very similar 
to that of a book of laws. We see that the written 
words of a prophet, read by the mouth of another, 
were received with the same deference as the spoken 
words. ‘They may of course be defied, as they were 
defied by Jehoiakim, but such defiance is an act of 


1 Jer. xxxvi. 1-4. 2 Jer. σσσνι ὁ (OC) Fee) 
8 Jer. xxxvi. 9-32. 


Transmission of Prophetic Writings. 239 


impiety which brings down swift punishment, We 
learn also that the natural scribe and custodian of 
a prophet’s writings is a trusted disciple. 

This last inference might have been drawn from 
a much earlier passage. More than a hundred years 
before Isaiah had received a command, ‘ Bind thou up 
the testimony, seal the law (or the instruction) among 
My disciples?’ It is Jehovah who is speaking, 
but commentators are agreed that the disciples in 
question are personal adherents of Isaiah to whose 
care the prophetic oracle is emphatically committed. 
Once more we observe that the charge to take 
steps for the permanent preservation of a prophetic 
writing comes by direct inspiration. The ‘binding 
and sealing’ are expressive of the authority which the 
writing in question is to carry. 

But now, when we remember how these prophetic 
rolls were to be preserved, we see at once to what 
dangers they must have been exposed. The number 
of a prophet’s disciples would often be small. It 
would seem as if Baruch was the only one in im- 
mediate personal attendance upon Jeremiah. But if 
so, when the prophet was gone and he was gone, 
who was to take their place? When the life of 
a book depended upon a single copy and a single 
guardian its continued existence was a precarious 
matter. The men of those days lived in times quite 
as troublous as that ‘present distress’ of which 
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians?. Their country 
wasted by successive invasions; Jerusalem twice taken 


᾿Ξ: ὙΠ} 16: 2 1 Cor. vii. 26. 


209 Κ΄. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


and once sacked and destroyed ; hurried flights, like 
that of Zedekiah’s men of war ‘by the way of the 
gate between the two walls, which was by the king's 
garden!;’ long marches into the interior, with all the 
chances of flood and field; the few precious scraps of 
roll hastily stowed away in the first receptacle that 
offered, and then perhaps committed as a last bequest 
by one dying exile to another. Can we wonder if, 
when the attempt was made to collect what remained 
from the wreck, it was attended by serious difficulties ? 
At first there was no central body to make the attempt. 
Little by little there grew up, and from Ezra onwards 
we may believe that there flourished, a class of scribes 
specially devoted to the collecting, transcription, and 
study of the ancient writings. But in many cases the 
mischief was done before these came into their hands. 
Ownerless fragments of MS. were straying about. 
Portions of the work of one prophet would be mixed 
up with the work of another. And the editors into 
whose hands they came had no clue to discriminate 
between them. Sometimes mere juxtaposition in 
place, the fact that two or three rolls or portions of 
rolls were found together in the same case, might be 
held to prove identity of authorship. And so nothing 
would be easier than that intrusive matter should 
sometimes make its way into the later collections, or 
that the order of a prophet’s writings should not be 
preserved. In fact the ancient editors would often 
have no real advantage over us moderns, while they 
were without many of our methods and appliances. 


* 2 Kihgs xxv. -4. 


Growth of a Reading Public. 241 


Hence they have left, and it was natural that they 
should leave, something still to be done both in the 
rearrangement of the order of the prophecies and in 
the assignment of the authorship of particular portions. 
The longest and the most important of the Prophetic 
Books have perhaps suffered most; both Jeremiah 
and Isaiah from dislocation of order, and Isaiah also 
from the mixing up of anonymous fragments of 
prophecy with his own. We must leave it to specialists 
to decide how far the process has gone. Some of 
them are perhaps inclined to run into extremes; but 
we cannot dispute the major premiss from which they 
start, and a sober judgment is likely to prevail in 
ἘΠΕ end, 

As we descend in time the need for collected and 
multiplied editions became greater. It is important 
to trace this growing need, because we are apt to 
forget that the production of books depends quite as 
much upon the readers as on the writers. Before 
there can be a demand for books there must be a 
reading public. But it must have taken some time 
before such a public was formed. In Greece the 
signs of a reading public hardly begin much before 
the Peloponnesian Wart. In Palestine they are no 
doubt older than this, though at first they do not 
extend very far. The chief students of the prophetic 
writings were probably for some time the prophets 
themselves. We see traces of this when we find in 
Isaiah and Micah, for instance, or in Jeremiah and 
Obadiah, passages which resemble each other so 

1 Τὴ, B. Jevons, History of Greek Liveraiure, Ὁ. 45. 
R 


222. V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


closely that as the one does not seem in either case 
to be directly dependent upon the other, the alter- 
native hypothesis becomes probable, that both are 
dependent upon some older writing now lost’. 

Next would come the activity of Schools. We 
have seen that Isaiah had disciples to whom we 
doubtless owe not the final collecting and arrange- 
ment of the Book of Isaiah as we have it, but that 
of some of the minor groups of prophecies included 
in it. It is not however clear that they continued 
the literary work of their master. It is otherwise 
when we come to Deuteronomy. The point at which 
this book—or rather the nucleus of the present 
book—enters the stream of Hebrew literature is 
very strongly marked. ‘As it fixed for long the 
standard by which men and actions were to be judged, 
so it provided the formulae in which these judgments 
were expressed ; in other words it provided a religious 
terminology which readily lent itself to adoption by 
subsequent writers? In two directions this influ- 
ence is apparent: partly upon succeeding prophets, 
Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Second Part 
of Isaiah—-Jeremiah in particular showing constant 
signs of it; and still more upon succeeding historians. 
Even Deuteronomy itself is probably not the work 
of a single writer, but of a school or succession of 
writers, who have left their impress deeply traced upon 
the Books of Joshua, Judges, Kings, and in some- 

* Driver, Zn/rod., pp. 203, 208 f. Cornill (Z7n/. p. 137 [) disputes 


the genuineness of Is. ii. 2-4, which is however defended by Duhm. 
? Driver, Znirod., p. 95. 


Influence of Schools. 243 


what less degree upon the Books of Samuel. The 
editors who brought together the historical materials 
contained in these books worked in the Deutero- 
nomic spirit and carried on the Deuteronomic tradition. 
Jeremiah himself has left his mark upon a group 
of psalms—possibly upon a group of psalmists— 
as well as upon other later writers’. Ezekiel was 
evidently a close student not only of his predecessors 
among the prophets but of the older collections of 
laws. The Book of Job is the centre of a number 
of affinities which may be due not so much to literary 
dependence as to the fact that the writers move in 
a similar circle of ideas*. When we descend to 
Zechariah we find direct references to the ‘former pro- 
phets*.” The literature of the later period generally, 


1 Hitzig went further than any other critic has done in claiming 
a number of Psalms as the actual composition of Jeremiah: viz. 
Pss. v, vi, XXil, XXVili-xxxi, xxxv, xl, lv, Ixix, Ixxi; more doubtfully, 
Pss. xiv, xxlii-xxvii, xxxii-xxxiv, xxxvil, xxxix, xli. This list has 
been recently examined by W. Campe (Das Verhdliniss Jeremias zu 
den Psalnen, Halle, 1891), who finds real affinities in Pss, i, vi, xxxi, 
XXxvV, Ixxix, cxxxv; in all these cases the priority is on the side of 
Jeremiah, and the coincidences proceed from the study of his writings 
—in some of the instances at least much later than the time of the 
prophet. It is not however denied that the influence of Jeremiah 
may be traceable in other parts of the Psalter. Dr. Driver finds the 
most marked resemblance to Jeremiah in Pss. xxxi, xxxv, Ixix, and 
Ixxix. Dr. Cheyne also pronounces against Jeremiah’s authorship, 
but in favour of Jeremiah’s influence not only in the Psalter but in 
the Books of Kings, Job, Second Isaiah, and Lamentations (2. L. 
Ῥ. 135; cf. Driver, Zu/rod., pp. 189, 408, 435). 

2 Cp. Driver, p. 408. 

8 Zech. i. 4, 6, vii. 7; compare the references in Driver, Zu/rod. 
Ῥ. 323 n., and for Zech. xi—xiv those on p. 331 ἢ. 


Ree 


24 V,. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


the post-exilic prophets, the later psalms and Chron- 
icles all show a close and systematic study of the 
older writings. 

There can be no doubt that by this time ches 
writings were not confined to the use of prophets 
or priests, but that they were somewhat widely 
diffused among the people generally. We have had 
an instance from the Book of Deuteronomy in which 
a portion at least of the Law was to be in lay hands: 
the king was to have a copy made of the portion 
relating to him. But the strong injunctions several 
times repeated in this book that the precepts of the 
Law are to be taught diligently by the fathers to the 
children and that they are to be ‘for a sign’ upon 
the hand and ‘for frontlets’ between the eyes}, 
although no doubt in the first instance referring to 
oral teaching, would soon give rise to written teaching 
as well. 

The Exile must have given a great impulse to 
the study of the former Scriptures. They were the 
chief consolation which the people had now that they 
had lost the temple and its services. The reading 
of the Law seems to have been the primary object 
of the synagogues, the date of the institution of which 
is uncertain, but probably goes back nearly if not 
quite to the time of Ezra*. Already in the pre-exilic 
period provision had been made for the public reading 
of portions of the Law. Every seven years at the 


4. Deut. vi,..7-95- cp: iv. 9) Σὶν τὸ; 20) 
* Similarly Schiirer, Weulest. Zettgesch. ii. 358. 


The Synagogues. 245 


feast of tabernacles the Book of Deuteronomy is to 
be read before the assembled people’. By means 
of the synagogues this public reading was organized, 
so that it took place regularly every sabbath? By 
the time of our Lord readings from the Prophets 
were added to those from the Law*. An historical 
origin for this practice has been found in the Mac- 
cabaean persecution, but the evidence is insufficient “. 
There can be no doubt that these readings would tend 
to confirm and deepen the reverence paid to the Law 
and the Prophets, or in other words, the idea of their 
Canonicity ; while the fact that they were not confined 
to the officials of the synagogue, but that readers 
were invited from among the congregation, would 
extend their influence through all classes of the 
nation. 

It is easy to see how a number of causes com- 
bined to enhance the authority both of the Law and of 
the Prophets. For the Prophets, there was first the 
inherent force of the prophetic word and the command- 
ing utterance of the prophets themselves, and then the 
signal confirmation of their predictions by the Exile 
and the Return. For the Law, there was the long 
series of solemn promulgations of different portions 


Σ Deut. xxxi. 10-13. 

* Acts xv. 213 Joseph. Contr. Apion. ii. 17. § 175: ἀλλὰ καὶ κάλλιστον 
καὶ ἀναγκαιότατον ἀπέδειξε παίδευμα τὸν νόμον οὐκ εἰσάπαξ ἀκροασομένοις 
οὐδὲ δὶς ἢ πολλάκις, ἀλλ᾽ ἑκάστης ἑβδομάδος, κατιλ. See also a learned 
article by Dr. A. Biichler in the Jewish Quarterly Review, April, 1893, 
pp. 420-468, 

uke iv: τὸ ff,; Acts xiii. 15. 

4 Zunz, Goflesdienst. Voritrdge, p. 6. 


5246. V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


at different periods of the history. The Law too 
gained in strength from the calamities of the Exile. 
The national conscience was thoroughly aroused, and 
it was felt that the sufferings which the people 
had to undergo were the just punishment for their 
disobedience. They came back from the Exile 
a changed nation, as determined to observe strict 
fidelity to the Law as their fathers had been ready to 
break it. The leaders, Ezra and Nehemiah, took full 
advantage of this temper. The Pentateuchal Law 
was read on two successive days with every circum-— 
stance of solemnity; then the feast of tabernacles was 
duly kept; and then a national fast and confession of 
sins formed the fitting preliminary to the conclusion 
of a covenant, to which Nehemiah and a number of 
priests, Levites, and heads of the people religiously 
set their seals'. Nor was the Law when thus ratified, 
or the Prophets, suffered again to pass into oblivion, 
for the founding of the order of the scribes and the 
institution of the synagogues with their lessons helped 
to keep them in continual remembrance. 

This is what we mean when we say that the Canon 
of the Law and of the Prophets was formed. The 
complete Canon of the Law may be said to date from 
the year 444 B.c. It formed the first body of Jewish 
Scripture in the strict sense. That it stood for a time 
alone appears amongst other things from the fact that 
the schismatic community founded by the renegade 
priest Manasseh and the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim 


1 Neh. viii-x. 


The Canon of the Prophets. 241 


soon after 432 B.c.1, took over from the Jews only 
the Pentateuch and acknowledged no other sacred 
book. 

Although there was at this time all the potentiality 
of the Canon of the Prophets, such a Canon did not 
exist actually until by degrees the conviction grew and 
became established that the line of prophets had come 
to an end. It is very commonly held that the Canon 
of the Prophets was formed in the course of the third 
century B.c. In the ‘praise of famous men’ at the 
end of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, written probably 
about 190-180 B.c., there is mention in their order 
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and of the Twelve 
Minor Prophets, who even then seem to have been 
combined in a single volume’. And in the Book of | 
Daniel (ix. 2) there is express reference to Jeremiah 
as one of a collection of Sacred Books. 

But what in the meantime of the /agzographa ὃ 
There too the foundations of the Canon were being 
laid. First for the Wisdom-Books. There is a little 
notice in the Book of Proverbs from which I cannot 
but think that all criticism of that book ought to start. 
The collection of proverbs which begins with chap. xxv 
has this heading, ‘These also are proverbs of Solomon, 
which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out,’ 
Some critics ignore this; others argue against its 


1 This date seems probable, at least for the beginnings of the 
schism, though Josephus puts the events in question later; see 
Montefiore, 476d. Lect., p. 352, and Stade, Gesch, ii. 188-191, there 
referred to. 

2 Ecclus. xlviii. 20, xlix. 6-10. 


248 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


authenticity. No doubt it is true that ‘also’ (‘ These 
also’) points to the previous portions of the book, 
and therefore was probably inserted when the book 
assumed its present shape; but it by no means follows 
that the rest of the note is of the same date. Nor 
does it follow either that because all the proverbs are 
not Solomon’s, none of them are his, or that even if 
the attribution to Solomon were wholly invalid, the 
mention of the ‘men of Hezekiah’ must necessarily 
break down with it. A little unpretending notice of 
this kind, directly concerned with the business of the 
scribe, has all the ring of genuineness—all the ring of 
truth to fact and of having been inserted while the 
facts were still fresh in remembrance. But if that is 
so, we get a most valuable clue in more directions than 
one. In the first place, we learn that the reign of 
Hezekiah was an age of collecting and copying. We 
learn that Hezekiah had a staff of men who were 
employed in this work; and we learn that they 
turned their attention more particularly to proverbs. 
Here then we have a stage—and I am inclined 
to believe the first stage—in the formation of the 
book which we know as the Book of Proverbs. 
Other like stages would come in due time. I am 
myself disposed to strike a balance between the con- 
flicting views of critics, some of whom maintain that 
the Book of Proverbs is post- and others that it is 


1 We may observe in passing that the very casual allusion to the 
scribe’s penknife in the scene with Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 23) about 
a hundred years later goes to show that such activity was not 
improbable. 


The Canon of the Hagiographa. 249 


pre-exilic, by putting some parts of it before and 
others after the Exile’. I do not think it likely that 
it took the complete form in which it has come down 
to us before the period of the scribes in the special 
and narrower sense who followed after Ezra. 

But from the first, just as the Prophetic Books, even 
when they only existed singly, had all the authority 
of the prophets, so also the collections of proverbs 
even before they were combined into a substantial 
volume had all the authority of the ‘wise men.’ There 
can be no doubt that these wz prelate graves were 
prominent figures in Jewish society. They must have 
been deferred to quite as much as the leading Rabbis 
in the period of the Talmud; and they deserved it 
more, because they were creative minds—and minds 
creative within the sphere of Revelation, and under 
those influences which are characteristic of Revelation. 
In other words, they too were not uninspired by the 
Holy Ghost. We saw in the last lecture what heights 
this inspiration reached in the Books of Proverbs and 
Job; and although the Book of Ecclesiastes may be 
on a somewhat lower level, it has a special value as 
being based on an exceptional kind of experience. 

Corresponding to the note from which we started in 
the Book of Proverbs is another not quite so distinct, 


1 The question as to the date of the Book of Proverbs was ably 
argued by Mr. Montefiore in the /Jewsh Quarierly, July, 1890, 
p. 430 ff. The summing up was in favour of the later date, for which 
Kuenen declared in the posthumous issue of his Onderzoek; but it 
must be admitted that some solid arguments were left on the other 
side. I should not like to speak dogmatically, but I believe that 
there is truth in both views. 


250 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


but leading to a similar inference in the Psalms. You 
will remember how at the end of Ps. lxxii comes in that 
strange little comment, ‘ The prayers of David, the son 
of Jesse, are ended.’ It is not really the end of the 
Psalms attributed to David, for others in the later 
portions of the Psalter bear his name. And it is 
probable that the Davidic Psalms of the First Book 
(Pss. i-xli) formed originally an entirely distinct col- 
lection from those of the Second Book to which the 
note in question is appended. What the note means 
is that a particular collection containing all the so- 
called Davidic Psalms to which the editor had access 
was finished. 

Our reason for thinking that the two Davidic 
collections in the First and Second Books of our 
present Psalter were originally distinct is that the 
same psalm appears with but slight variation in each 
(Ps. xiv= Ps. liii). If the editor of the second col- 
lection had been acquainted with the first collection 
he would hardly have thought it necessary to repeat 
just one psalm out of it. At the same time the fact 
that only one psalm, with a portion of a second, is 
repeated, would go to show that the authors of the 
two collections had access to wholly different tracts of 
material. The circles in which they moved in their 
search for psalms intersected each other only at this 
single point. The inference is that the earlier psalms 
were widely scattered and were brought together from 
divers quarters. Of course that would not be the 
case with the psalms which were in the possession of 


1 Compare also Ps, xl. 14-17 with Ps. Ixx. 


The Canon of the Hagiographa. 251 


the Levitical guilds, the sons of Asaph and the sons 
of Korah. These would be naturally kept together 
from the first. But the observation just made would 
strengthen the conclusion, in itself probable enough, 
that many of the older psalms were not in the first 
instance composed with a view to the temple-worship, 
but were afterwards adapted to this—just as in our 
own hymn-books many of the hymns had their origin 
as the expression of private devotion and were not 
intended for congregational use. 

If then we admit, as we may certainly admit, that 
the Psalter as we have it was the ‘song-book of the 
second temple, it by no means follows that the indi- 
vidual psalms were all composed in the period of the 
second temple. I cannot think that it has been at all 
proved that there was no psalmody in the first temple. 
The simple fact that a body of singers (Ezra ii. 41) 
returned from captivity is strong presumption to the 
contrary. Still less can we believe that the art which 
had reached such high perfection in the Song of 
Deborah and in David's elegy was never employed 
for purposes of devotion until after the Exile. Here 
again the plain inference that the psalms addressed 
to a ‘king’ belong to the times of the Monarchy should 
not I think be resisted 1. 

But the question of pre-exilic psalms, interesting as 
it is, is too large for me to enter upon here; nor has 


* So, to name only a few of the most recent authorities, Driver, 
Introd. p. 360; Kautzsch in Svud. u. Krit. 1892, p. 588; Baethgen, 
Psalmen, p. xxv; Sellin, De Orig. Carm. &c. p. 44 ff.; Konig, 
Linleitung, p. 401. 


252. V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


it a very essential bearing upon our present subject. 
In the canonization of the Psalms two steps are 
important. One is the forming of the collections; 
the other is continued liturgical use. The collect- 
ing of psalms was more akin to the collecting of 
proverbs than of prophecies. As soon as prophecies 
began to be written down at all it was natural to bring 
together and to preserve the works of the same author. 
But when the scattered works of different authors are 
thus combined, it is proof that attention is being drawn 
to that particular branch of literature and that a special 
value is set upon it. At this point the Psalms and 
the Proverbs or Wisdom-Books diverge. The latter 
receive their stamp from the authority of the ‘wise 
men, the former from their use in public worship. 
If the gold of the temple was sanctified by the temple’, 
how much more inevitably would the prayers and 
praises offered up in the courts of the Lord’s house 
acquire a sanctity of their own! In this respect the 
Psalms had an advantage over the Prophets. The 
date at which readings from the Prophets took their 
place in the synagogues beside the readings from the 
Law was in any case much later than that at which the 
Psalms were systematically used in the central worship 
at Jerusalem. And as each new hymn or collection 
of hymns was taken up by the temple-choirs, its place 
was assured in the sacred volume. 

The two most important divisions of the /agzo- 
grapha are thus accounted for. There remain the 
five Megilloth or ‘ Rolls’ (Song of Songs, Ruth, 


1 Matt. xxiii. 17. 


The Canon of the Hagtographa. 253 


Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), Daniel, Ezra and 
Nehemiah, Chronicles. The Rolls were read in the 
synagogues at certain specified seasons—the Song at 
the Passover, Ruth at Pentecost, &c. But the fact 
that the day assigned to Lamentations is the οἵ of 
Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
would show that this was a late arrangement. It also 
appears that when the Jews reckoned the Books of 
the Old Testament as twenty-two, Ruth went with 
Samuel and Lamentations with Jeremiah. The reason 
for the canonizing of these books was therefore not 
liturgical, We must rather see in it the work of the 
scribes during the second century before our era, and 
especially during the fifty years of subsidence and 
prosperity which followed the Maccabaean rising. The 
determination of this last division of the Jewish Canon, 
and with it of the Canon of the Old Testament gene- 
rally, must have proceeded from above downwards. 
The agency through which it was brought about 
cannot have been popular usage, which was lax and 
indiscriminate, but must have been an authority of 
some kind. And the authority in question can only 
have been that which had already framed the Canon 
of the Law and of the Prophets, the only court of 
appeal before which the claims of the later books 
ever seem to have been argued, the authority of the 
scribes }, 


1 There is I believe thus much foundation for the tradition 
respecting the ‘Men of the Great Synagogue.’ On this see Ryle, 
Canon, pp. 250-272; Driver, Znirod. Ὁ. xxxiii ff.; Konig, Ζ πὶ. 
Ρ. 445 ff. 


2 


54 V. The Old Testament as a Collectton. 


III. But when we have realized this, we are still 
not at the end of the problem propounded to us; 
we still have to ask what principle they followed in 
deciding what was Sacred Scripture and what was not. 
Why for instance, to take concrete examples, were the 
Books of Chronicles included in the Canon and the 
Books of Maccabees excluded from it? Why were 
Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel placed on one side 
of the line, and Judith, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom on 
the other? There are indeed two questions, which 
ought to be kept distinct. First, the historical ques- 
tion, What were the motives which influenced those 
who framed the Canon as a matter of fact? and 
secondly the dogmatic question, What are the con- 
siderations which weigh with us in accepting their 
decision now ἢ 

We have seen that the central idea with the Jews 
was that of Prophecy (sz. p. 110). Their rough con- 
ception seems to have been that books composed 
during the prevalence of Prophecy were inspired in 
the strict and true sense, and that those composed 
after the cessation of Prophecy were not. I am only 
saying what their idea was, not that it was carried 
out with perfect accuracy. A margin, and a somewhat 
broad margin, has to be allowed. There needed to be 
not only the fact that Prophecy should cease, but also 
the conscious recognition that it had ceased, which 
would naturally take some time longer. The idea was 
probably a vague and general idea, not, precise and 
definite. Equally wanting in precision would be also 
the dating of the later books which were candidates 


Principles of Canonization. 255 


for admission to the Canon. A book like Chronicles 
or Ecclesiastes, for instance, would glide quietly into 
circulation, and no one would know to fifty ora hundred 
years when it had been composed. There is one book 
which bears its date upon its front, the Wisdom of 
the Son of Sirach. In that case the author gives his 
name and makes it clear (at least his grandson makes 
it clear) to within ten or twenty years when he lived. 
And the consequence was that it was excluded from 
the Canon. The book was read and treated with 
respect but not regarded as Canonical '. 

The Books of Daniel and Ecclesiastes probably 
gained their place in the first instance under cover of 
the names which they bore. In both cases there 
would be a predisposition to receive them—Eccle- 
siastes because it continued the line of the works of 
the Wise Men, for the analogy of works of established 
authority would always carry great weight; and Daniel 
because it struck the patriotic and prophetic note at 
the time of the Maccabaean rising. Perhaps if Eccle- 
siasticus had been anonymous and had not revealed 
its true date and character so plainly it might have 
had the same fortune as Ecclesiastes. 

That the scribes acted dond fide in their decisions 
appears from the fact that some of the books which 
they excluded were just those which fell in most 
entirely with the spirit of the later Judaism. The 
strong particularism of Judith, the many popular beliefs 
which find their way into Tobit, and the whole tone 
and tenor of Ecclesiasticus, would commend them. It 


1 Cf Konig, Linleitung, p. 469. 


256 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


is difficult to see what can have told against these 
books except the knowledge of their later date and 
perhaps an undefined sense of difference between 
them and the elder Scriptures. The Book of Wisdom, 
which would otherwise have had the strongest claims, 
would be excluded because it was written in Greek. 
That fact alone would be sufficient to decide against 
it. Hebrew was the ‘holy language’’ And the 
highly centralized ‘scribism’ of Palestine would require 
as a first condition in any book which claimed to be 
regarded as ‘Scripture’ that it should be written in it. 
But at the time when the Canon was practically 
formed the Book of Wisdom was probably not written, 
or if written it was unknown 3. 

Some difficulty is raised in connexion with the view 
now largely held that there are in our Psalter psalms 
of Maccabaean origin. For my own part I very much 
doubt whether there are any such psalms. It seems 
to me, as well as I can judge at present, that the diffi- 
culties caused by the assumption that there are out- 
weigh the arguments for them*. One of the psalms 
most confidently set down as Maccabaean is already 
quoted as prophetic Scripture fulfilled during the 
Maccabaean insurrection in the First Book of Mac- 


? Dr. Neubauer in Sud. Bibl. i. 50. 

2 The Book of Wisdom cannot be dated with any precision, but 
K6nig is probably right in regarding it as giving expression to a 
‘pre-Philonian Alexandrianism,’ and as wrilten somewhere between 
Ecclus. and Philo (£7n/. p. 489). 

8 Even writers so conservative as Driver (p. 363 ‘as it seems”) 
and Baethgen (Psalmen, p. xxxi) allow the existence of Maccabaean 
Psalms. But this is still questioned by Robertson Smith (O. Ζ: Δ C. 
pp. 207 f., 437 ff.), and Konig (2 1]. p. 403). 


Maximum and Minimum Canon. 25] 


cabees. And if we believe, as many do believe, that 
the Greek version of the Psalter is not later than 
¢. 100 B.C., the number of steps implied between it and 
the original composition of the Hebrew psalms is so 
great as to make it difficult to get them all into the 
interval1, If there are Maccabaean psalms, they 
slipped in as part of a collection which already had 
a high degree of sanction. As entirely new composi- 
tions they could hardly have done so. 

Such seems to be the account, so far as it can be 
given, of the historical formation of the Canon. And 
for all practical purposes the Canon of history and 
the Canon of doctrine are the same?. The Canon is 
one of the possessions of the Church Universal, in- 
herited from the days when the Church was still 
undivided. The smznxzmum Canon at least is common 
to East and West, to Catholic and Protestant, to every 
branch and sect into which Christendom has ramified. 
Clearly it could not be touched without adding one 
more to those causes of disunion which good men all 
the world over are bent upon diminishing. 

The English Churchman in particular is in a happy 
position. He can mediate here, as his Lutheran 
brother can also in this respect mediate, between the 


1 See Additional Note A: Zhe inferior Limit for the Date of the 
Psalter. 

* Cardinal Bellarmin regards the determination of the Canon as 
simply the expression of historical facts: Lcclestam nullo modo posse 
Sacere librum canonicum de non canonico nec contra, sed tantum deciarare 
guis habendus canonicus, et hoc non temere nec pro arbitratu, sed ex 
velerum testimoniis (ap. Poertner, Die Autoritét αι. deuterocanon. Biicher 
d. 4. Z., Minster i. W. 1893, p. 1 7.). 


5 


28. Κ΄. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


severed branches of the Church of Christ. He has most 
of the advantages, without the drawbacks, at once 
of the maximum Canon and of the mznzmum. Our 
Sixth Article begins by endorsing the Jewish Canon, 
and then goes on to add certain other books which 
it commends ‘for example of life and instruction of 
manners.’ In other words, it gives to the Apocrypha 
an amount of deference which its best members fully 
deserve. For this there is excellent historical founda- 
tion. The Article does but follow the precedent of 
the choicest spirits in the Ancient Church, both Jewish 
and Christian. It connects the Church of our own 
day directly with them. And besides, it does, at least 
roughly and approximately, correspond to the facts. 

Any definition in a matter of this kind which is to 
cover a wide extent of time and space and is to unite 
divers races and conditions of men, must be rough 
and approximate. It may not meet all the refine- 
ments of the critical conscience. But a reasonable 
man who is not anxious to erect his own judgment 
into a law and who would distrust his own judgment 
if it could be so erected, may well be content with 
what is given him. 

At the same time it must be remembered—and the 
conclusion is pressed upon us by the whole of this 
part of our inquiry—that the boundaries of the Canon, 
though fixed for us historically, are not fixed in the 
sense of a hard and fast impassable barrier. It is 
out of the question to say that the Book of Esther is 
wholly filled with the Spirit of God and the Book of 
Wisdom wholly devoid of it. There are books of the 


Deuterocanonical Inspiration. 259 


Old Testament which stand out clearly and indis- 
putably with a difference which really amounts to a 
difference of kind from all other books which could 
possibly be compared with them, those of the New 
Testament alone excepted. But there are others in 
which this difference fines down gradually till it is 
hardly a difference in kind at all. And just as there 
is a descending scale within the Canon, there is an 
ascending scale outside it. Some of the books in 
our Apocrypha might well lay claim to a measure of 
inspiration. 

This will appear when we examine them as we have 
examined the Canonical Books, to see what ideas they 
themselves express upon the subject. The son of 
Sirach believed himself to be inspired. He compares 
himself by a graphic image to one of the channels 
used for irrigation. In the common version his words 
run thus: ‘I also came out as a brook from a river, 
and as a conduit into a garden. I said, 1 will water 
my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden- 
bed: and lo, my brook became a river, and my river 
became a sea. I will yet make doctrine to shine as the 
morning, and will send forth her light afar off. I will 
yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and leave it to all 
ages for ever. Behold that I have not laboured for 
myself only, but for all them that seek wisdom!’ 
There are other passages which make the same im- 
plication, which is also found in the Book of Wisdom 3. 


* Ecclus. xxiv. 30-34. The last verse is omitted by the Syriac and 
Dr. Edersheim. 


? Wisd. viii. 2, g—21. 


260 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


It is somewhat differently expressed by the younger 
son of Sirach in the prologue to his grandfather’s 
work. There he says that his grandfather, ‘when 
he had much given himself to the reading of the law 
and the prophets and other books of our fathers, and 
had gotten therein good judgment, was drawn on also 
himself to write something pertaining to learning, to 
the intent that those which are desirous to learn, and 
are addicted to these things, might profit much more 
in living according to the law.’ 

We may observe in passing, as a point of real dis- 
tinction between the Canonical and Non-Canonical 
Books, that the writers of the latter, especially the 
son of Sirach, display an amount of self-consciousness 
on the subject of authorship which is wanting in those 
of the former. The passage first quoted from Eccle- 
siasticus is not free from boastfulness—a quality wholly 
absent from the Canonical Scriptures, and in that re- 
spect a speaking witness to their inspiration. The 
writers of these Scriptures knew that their words were 
not (in any sense of which they could boast) their own 
words at all. 

The younger son of Sirach uses language adapted 
to his Greek readers. He has already a Canon. 
And yet it is clear that he puts no impassable gulf 
between the work of his grandfather and the Canonical 
Books. He regards his grandfather as taking his 
start from these, but almost in a manner continuing 
them as literature. He also will write ‘something 
pertaining to learning (παιδείαν, culture, religious 
culture or discipline) and wisdom, The idea is 


Deuterocanonical Inspiration. 261 


probably that which the Jews attached to their ‘wise 
men,’ a class to which the elder son of Sirach really 
belonged. The way in which he characterizes his 
own work is indeed a fair description of it. ‘And I,’ 
he says, ‘was the last to watch, as one that gleaneth 
after the grape-gatherers: by the blessing of the Lord 
I attained (ἔφθασα), and filled my winepress like a 
gatherer of grapes’. This is just what the son of 
Sirach was—a gleaner after the vintage. His grapes 
are real grapes, and the wine pressed from them is 
real wine; but the main vintage was over before he 
entered upon it. We may note here too by the way 
an interesting expression of the consciousness that 
Israel’s Bible is being closed. The writer seems to 
hope that there may be room for his own book, though 
he does not venture to put it quite on a level with 
those which have gone before. The metaphor from 
irrigation in the passage first quoted is to the same 
effect. [he Canonical Books, the writings of acknow- 
ledged inspiration, are the river; his own book is a 
trench cut from it to water his garden. He cannot 
lay claim to the creative gift, but he can convey what 
others have created to the soil which thirsts for it. 
The term ‘ Deuterocanonical’ (if we may put our 
own sense upon it *) would describe well such books as 


1 Ecclus. xxxiiil. 16. This is somewhat altered from the common 
version: the opening phrase is borrowed from Mr. Ball’s excellent 
Variorum edition. Some of the expressions are important (e.g. 
ἔφθασα, which I believe means ‘attained my object,’ not ‘I outstripped 
others,’ as Fritzsche). 

? See Additional Note B: Zhe use of the term Deuterocanontcal in 
the Roman Church. 


22 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. It is sufficiently clear 
that at the time when these books were written there 
was already a conception of Inspiration in the Proto- 
Canonical Books. The writers of the later books are 
conscious of this, but they seem to claim something 
similar for themselves and to hope that their own 
words would not be let die. There is some ground 
for their claim. Behind them too we can see the great 
principles of the revelation made to Israel, though 
there are flaws in their way of applying them. 


IV. And yet it would not have been possible to 
make such claims if the conception of Inspiration had 
been as fixed and as strict as it afterwards became. 
One conspicuous fact proves that it did not attain to 
this position all at once. That fact is the state of the 
text of the Septuagint Version. It is well known 
that many of the Apocryphal Books in our larger 
Bibles were originally incorporated in the text of 
Canonical Books. For instance, the Song of the 
Three Children, the Story of Susanna, and Bel and 
the Dragon are all episodes inserted in or added to 
the Greek version of the Book of Daniel; the Prayer 
of Manasseh is a like episode in the Second Book of 
Chronicles; there are a number of additions to the 
Book of Esther, while the Book of Ezra has been 
curiously turned about and appears in two different 
forms, in one of which the original has been treated 
with great freedom?. But such liberties could not 


1 The Book which is sometimes called the First (LXX and A. V.) 
and sometimes the Third (Vulg. and Art. vi.) Book of Esdras is a 


The Conception of Inspiration. 263 


have been taken after the strict view of the sacred 
character of the Canonical Books was fully established. 
There was clearly a period, especially for the Third 
Division of the Canon, when a laxer view prevailed. 
The drawing of the cordon more tightly round the 
Canonical Books and the gradual stereotyping of the 
Canonical Text were processes which went on side by 
side. There was the same sort of gradation in each. 
Just as the Books of the Law were the first to be 
formed into a Canon, so also they were the first to 
attain comparative fixity. We see this from the much 
smaller amount of variation in the Septuagint. The 
Prophetical Books come next to them; and the 
flagiographa are last, both in the demarcation of 
their limits and in the reducing to some sort of 
restraint and order of the licence of their transcribers. 
By degrees there took place an equalizing of the 
three divisions of the Canon. Even with the Jews | 
all were Scripture, and all shared in the properties of 
Scripture. And with Christians the old pre-eminence 
of the Law was done away, and the other books were 
brought up to the same level with it in sacredness and | 
authority. ; 
It was natural that there should be an analogous 
process in regard to the doctrine of Inspiration. 
There too it is easy to trace a gradual levelling up | 
patchwork mainly from 2 Chron., Ezra, and Nehemiah. [But a new 
view of this book which assigns it a somewhat higher character is 
being put forward by Sir H. H. Howorth in a series of letters to 
The Academy.| The Second Book of Esdras (LXX) is our Ezra and 


Nehemiah. In the Vulgate, 1 Esdras=our Ezra, 2 Esdras=our 
Nehemiah. 


264 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


of the conception. The principle at work is one of 
the commonest to which the operations of the human 
mind are subject—the Principle of Extensions. 1 do 
‘not think that there is one of the points which go to 
make up the strictest form of the traditional doctrine 
which has not some warrant in the books themselves. 
But that which originally had reference to some 
particular mode or organ of revelation was extended 
so as to cover the whole. Limitations were forgotten. 
Propositions which were true within a defined area 
became so elastic that they ceased to be true. 

We have seen how emphatic are the precepts of 
the Law. The imperatives are as strong in the 
earliest code as in the latest. The Book of the 
Covenant ends with the same sanction of threats and 
promises! as Deuteronomy. Those in the later book 
are somewhat expanded and accentuated, but in prin- 
ciple they are the same. We saw too that the binding 
force of this primitive code was recognised no less 
than that of the complete Pentateuchal legislation. 
‘All that the Lord hath said will we do and be 
obedient.’ It was impossible to add anything essen- 
tial to this. Human words could not express the 
obligation of the Law more strongly. 

Again, the prophetic ‘ Thus saith the Lord’ knows 
no degrees. Whether it is command, or whether it is 
doctrine, or whether it is prediction, it is alike un- 
hesitating. The prophets were as convinced of the 
authority of their utterances as they were of their 
own existence. 


1 Ex: xxiii. 20-33. 


The Conception of Inspiration. 265 


Here we have a twofold standard to which it was 
natural that everything should be referred. And we 
can see what an easy step it would be to the doctrine 
of plenary or verbal inspiration. By precisely the 
same process by which the one term, ‘the Law’) 
(ὁ νόμος), or the double term, ‘the Law and the 
Prophets, came to be used for the whole of the Old 
Testament Scriptures, the attributes of the Law and 
the attributes of the Prophets were extended to all| 
the books, and to all the parts of all the books, 
included in the Canon. 

The Law was as binding as law could be. The 
inspiration of the prophets for its particular purpose 
was plenary. But even here there is something 
further to be considered. Because the Law was bind- 
ing in all its parts upon the generation or succession 
of generations to which it was given, it did not follow 
that all the parts were of equal importance, or that 
it could not be first corrected and ultimately repealed 
by the same authority by which it was given. 

And for the Prophets, although it is true that the 
strongest sayings in the New Testament may be 
paralleled from the Old, even they do not exhaust the 
whole matter. The formula which is common to the 
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John and the Acts is 
found already in the First Book of Kings. We read 
there that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being 
priest, ‘that he might fulfil the word of the Lord 
which He spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh’ 
(τ Kings ii, 27); and again in the beginning of the 
Book of Ezra, the raising up of Cyrus is ascribed to 


266 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


the same cause, ‘that the word of the Lord by the 
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled’ (Ezra i. 1). 
This apparently mechanical pre-determination of history 
is a corollary from two doctrines—on the one hand 
the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God, and 
on the other hand the identification of the prophet’s 
word with the Divine counsel. Both are true. But 
then there is also here, as indeed in all places where 
the sovereignty of God is appealed to, the comple- 
mentary truth of the free-will of man which in some 
way inscrutable to us is taken up into the Divine fore- 
knowledge, so that predictions which are positive so 
far as the principles on which they turn are concerned, 
may yet be conditional so far as they depend on human 
action’, The essential thing in predictive prophecy is 
the insight which it gives into the Mind and Will of 
God, and into the laws and tendencies in which that 
Will finds expression. But it will not always be pos- 
sible for us to lay the finger upon exact and literal 
fulfilments. We see the surface of things; but the 
Divine working does not lie upon but only comes to 
the surface, and is carried on largely out of our sight 
in a course deflected from the direction at which we 
SEE i 

Yet one more item in the later conception is based 


1 Compare Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, p. 137: ‘How 
have Hosea’s prophecies been fulfilled? Does it seem that they 
reach far beyond any fulfilment to which we can point, and have failed 
of accomplishment? It must be remembered that all prophecy is 
conditional. It expresses God’s purpose, which is so mysteriously 
conditioned and limited by man’s folly and obstinacy. Yet in spirit, if 
not in the letter, it has been and is being fulfilled.’ 


The Conception of Inspiration. 267 


directly upon precedents which are found in the Scrip- 
tures to which they are applied. When Josephus 
says that in all the ages which have elapsed since the 
Jews received their Sacred Books no one had dared 
to add anything to them or to take away from them 
or to alter anything in them?, he clearly has in his 
mind Deut. xii. 32: ‘What thing soever I command 
you, that shall ye observe to do: thou shalt not add 
thereto nor diminish from it. This is from the oldest 
portion of the book: substantially the same words 
are repeated in the Preface (Deut. iv. 2); and they 
are adapted with a wider reference in the Book of 
Proverbs, ‘Every word of God is pure. . . . Add not 
thou to His words, lest He reprove thee and thou be 
found a liar’ (Prov. xxx. 5, 6). 

It is obvious however that these passages are only 
applicable by inference to the Bible or to the Old 
Testament as a whole, because at the time when they 
were written there was still much to be added and 
there were some things to be altered. What they 
seem to mean in the first instance is that the prophetic 
word or word spoken prophetically as coming from 
God must be given in full; there must be no tamper- 
ing with it by addition or subtraction, so as to make 
it mean something different from what was intended *. 


1 Contr. Apion. i. 8. 

* A good example of this is supplied by a criticism of Origen’s 
upon Heracleon (Brooke, Fragments of Heracleon, Ὁ. 51, from Orig. 
Comm. tn Ev. Joan. ii. 8): ἀναιδέστερον δὲ ἱστάμενος πρὸς τὸ “ Καὶ χωρὶς 
αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν᾽ μηδὲ εὐλαβούμενος τὸ “Μὴ προσθῇς τοῖς λόγοις 

> ~ σ᾽ ς ‘ 7 ‘ \ , ᾽ , “ ‘ NVA APS? a > 
αἰτοῦ ἵνα μὴ ἐλέγξῃ καὶ ψευδὴς γένῃ, προστίθησι τῷ “οὐδὲ Ev’ τῶν ἐν 


πὸ , A “ γ᾽) 
τῷ κόσμῳ καὶ τῇ κτίσει, K.T.A, 


268 V. The Old Testament as a Collection. 


It is like Balaam’s reply to the messengers of Balak : 
‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and 
gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord, to de 
either good or bad of mine own mind: what the Lord 
speaketh, that will I speak 1. 

We are constantly being brought back to prophecy 
and the prophetic inspiration, which I have already 
described as ‘typical of all inspiration. But it will 
be seen that it is not strictly safe to transfer what 
is said of this to all other kinds of inspiration. 
The psalmists and wise men had an inspiration of 
their own, which may be in part prophetical, but in 
any case is not so entirely. Still less is it safe to 
transfer what is said of the prophet speaking or 
writing as a prophet, to another function of the same 
man writing as a historian. The inspiration of the 
prophet was a special gift bestowed upon him at 
particular times and for particular purposes. It did 
not inhere in his person absolutely; nor was it 
present with him at all times. We can usually tell 
by the mode of speech when it was present. But 
the inspiration of the prophet was remote from the 
writing of history. To this extent only the two 
things might be connected, that the knowledge of the 
ways of God acquired in inspired moments might, 


when applied without the aflatus, giye_ an insight 
into the meaning of the history. There is evidence 


that it did give such an insight. But there is no 
evidence to show that it in any way superseded the 
ordinary use of historical materials, or that it inter- 


1 Numxxiv: Τῷ; 


The Conception of Inspiration. 269 


fered with that use in such a way as to prevent 
possibilities of error. 

One of the chief instruments in the advance of 
knowledge is the adst¢nguendum. And it is this 
method of ‘ distinctions’ which needs to be applied if 
we are to form an exact idea of Inspiration. It was 
most natural, and in a manner most right, that the 

—wonderful insight obtained from such countless places 
in the Old Testament should cast a halo round the 
whole. For many a devout soul that halo has been 
enough. But new ages bring new needs. The 
progress which the present age is making is largely an 
intellectual progress, and its special need is for more 
precise definitions. These it is our duty to attempt to 
offer. But the Scriptures themselves remain what 
they are. No definition can affect their essential 
nature. If they have had power in the past, they 
will have power also in the future. The great 
moving forces of the moral world come from them. 
The best that we know of God is derived from their 
pages. And the forces which they set in motion are 
permanent forces; and the light which shines from 
them is also permanent; it shines, and will shine, as 
long as the sun and moon endure. 


270 Notes to Lecture V. 


NOTE A: 


The inferior Limit for the Date of the Psalter. 


I MAY perhaps be allowed to express the opinion that for 
a methodical determination of the date of the Psalter the last 
argument to be applied in order of time should be that from 
the identification of historical allusions. These allusions are 
for the most part so vague and our knowledge of the history 
of the period into which they are to be fitted is so imperfect 
that no satisfactory conclusion can be drawn from them until 
the more external data have been fully estimated. 

All the study which I have myself been able to give to 
the subject goes to endorse the view recently put forward 
by one of the most judicious of Old Testament scholars. 

‘If I am not mistaken, the conclusions of the Books [into 
which the Psalter is divided], the parallel texts [of Psalms 
repeated in these Books or elsewhere], the Elohistic redaction 
of the Middle Books, and the separate collections indicated 
by the superscriptions, may furnish a most valuable basis for 
ascertaining the history of the Psalter’ (Budde in Theol. 
Literaturzeitung, 1892, col. 250). 

It would be obviously out of place for one who is not an 
Old Testament scholar to attempt to work out these problems 
in detail, but he may perhaps without intrusion give a speci- 
men of the kind of considerations on which he thinks that 
stress may well be laid. 

We may take as an instance Ps. Ixxix, which is one of 
those which are most confidently set down to the Macca- 


Note A. 271 


baean period. Between the composition of this Psalm and 
its inclusion in the Septuagint Version the following steps 
must have intervened. 

(1) The adding to the Psalm of the superscription ‘a Psalm 
of Asaph’ in the Hebrew. It is hardly likely that this 
would be done immediately after the composition of the 
Psalm. We should naturally suppose that some time would 
elapse. 

(2) The inclusion of the Hebrew Psalm in the little collec- 
lection of Asaphic Psalms (Pss. 1, Ixxiii-lxxxiii). It is 
possible that this might take place at the same time as the 
adding of the title. 

(3) The grouping of the little collection of Asaphic Psalms 
with another little collection of Korahite Psalms (Pss. xlii— 
xlix), and of both with a collection of Davidic Psalms (Pss. 
li-Ixxii). The whole of this process need not have taken 
place at once. 

(4) The redaction of the collection thus formed by the 
substitution of the name ‘Elohim’ for ‘Jehovah.’ It is, 
I conceive, really improbable that this redaction occurred 
after the time of the Maccabees. 

(5) The disturbance of the order of the last-formed collec- 
tion, so that the Davidic Psalms came to be interposed 
between the Asaphic Psalms 1 and Ixxiii. All this implies 
a considerable history for the collection. At some time or 
other the miscellaneous titled Psalms ]xxxiv-Ixxxix are 
added to it. 

(6) We now have a complete collection; but that collection 
has to be embodied in the full Psalter of 150 Psalms. That is 
another great and important step. 

(7) When the whole Psalter is complete the idea after 
a time arises of dividing it into Five Books, like the Penta- 
teuch. It is agreed that these divisions are, in part at least, 
artificial; and therefore it is not probable that they were 
made at the same moment as the first gathering together of 
the 150 Psalms. 

(8) At some time or other, possibly but by no means 


272 Notes to Lecture V. 


certainly, at the time of the collecting of the 150 Psalms, these 
have attached to them a continuous numeration. But between 
this first numeration and the making of the Septuagint 
Version certain variations of numbering had been introduced. 
The numeration in fact itself has a history. This appears 
both from the artificial combination of certain Psalms (6. σ.. Ps. 
cxliv. I-11, 12-15) and separation of certain others (e.g. Pss. 
ix, X; xlii, xliii), and also from the differences between the 
numeration of the Hebrew and the Septuagint. The separa- 
tion of Pss. ix, x, may have taken place after the making of 
the Septuagint Version, but not that of xlii, xliii, or the 
combination of Ps. cxliv. In the archetype of our leading 
MSS. of the LXX a supplementary Psalm is added (Ps. cli) 
which is expressly described as ἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ. 

(9) Also the headings to the Psalms must have had a con- 
siderable history, as may be seen from the variants in the 
LXX headings. It would probably not be difficult for 
a Hebraist to say how far it is likely that the additional 
headings in the LXX were introduced as new Greek headings 
in that Version, and how far they had already found their 
way into the Hebrew copy from which it was translated. 
_ Antecedently it would seem that the making of new 
headings would be more likely to be carried on by the 
scribes of Jerusalem than by those of Alexandria. We note 
that the additions to the titles of Pss. xxiv, xlviii, xcii, 
xciii, xciv (Heb.), all have reference to the services of the 
Temple. 

It is possible that the number of these different stages 
might be slightly reduced by supposing that some of them 
were coincident. But on the other hand there are several 
of them for which it seems natural to assume a considerable 
lapse of time. 

Taking them altogether I find it extremely difficult to get 
them all into the interval between the Maccabaean Revolt 
and the date (which many of the critics who accept Macca- 
baean Psalms place about the year 100 B.C.) of the Septuagint 
Psalter. I do not say that the difficulty is insuperable ; but 


Note B. 273 


I do think that the critic who ignores or makes light of it is 
like an army with a strong force of the enemy in its rear. 


NODEB. 


The use of the term Deuterocanonical in the 
Roman Church. 


THE term ‘ Deuterocanonical’ does not appear to be older 
than the sixteenth century. Its use is sanctioned by Roman | 
Catholic theologians, but with the proviso that it does not | 
imply a lower degree of authority. 

Thus Poertner, Die Autoritat α΄. deuterocanon. Biicher d. 
A. T. (Miinster i. W. 1893), p. ΕΖ: ‘Obwohl die Kirche 
diesen Ausdruck “deuterocanonisch” ftir anerkannt kano- 
nische Schriften nicht zuriickweist, so ist es doch nicht ihre 
Absicht, damit eine geringere Meinung von den deuteroc. 
Biichern hinsichtlich ihrer dogmatischen und ethischen Gel- 
tung documentieren zu wollen, wie dies mit Unrecht von 
Zoeckler (Die Apokryphen d. A. T., Miinchen, 1891, S. 22), 
Keerl (Die <Apokryphen d. A. T. Ein Zeugniss wider 
dieselben, Leipzig, 1852, 5. 164) und anderen behauptet 
worden ist. 

‘Die im 16. Jahrhundert aufgekommene Benennung “ deu- 
terocanonisch” bezeichnet nur Biicher, welche zu einem 
anderen als dem von den Juden aufgestellten Kanon d. A. T., 
namlich zum Kanon der christl. Kirche, gehoren. Die zum 
jiidischen Kanon gehorigen Schriften wurden missverstandlich 
“ protocanonisch genannt.”’ 

Compare Loisy, Histoire du Canon de ζ Ancien Testament, 
Paris, 1890, p. 6: ‘ Dans l’Eglise catholique on désigne ordi- 
nairement ces mémes ¢crits, ainsi que les parties du Nouveau 
Testament dont la canonicité a été jadis contestée, sous le 
nom de deutérocanoniques. On appelle protocanoniques les 
livres dont la canonicité n’a jamais été l’objet d’un doute. 

~ L’emploi de ces termes ne remonte pas ἃ l’antiquité: on n’a 
Jt 


274 Notes to Lecture V. 


commencé a s’en servir qu’apres la définition du canon par 
le concile de Trente (vid. Sixte de Sienne, Biblioth. Sancta, 
lib. τ. ᾧ 1). 115 π᾿ impliquent aucune différence entre les Livres 
saints au point de vue de la canonicité entendue dans le sens 
quia été indiqué plus haut, car tous les livres reconnus par 
l'Eglise comme inspirés sont également canoniques: le té- 
moignage rendu par |’Eglise ἃ la divinité de leur origine est 
le méme pour tous et n’admet pas de degrés. La distinction 
des protocanoniques et des deutérocanoniques n’a de valeur 
qu’au point de vue de lhistoire: elle retient le souvenir des 
anciens doutes, en.méme temps qu'elle affirme la canonicité 
des écrits touchant lesquels ces doutes se sont produits.’ 

This teaching is based ultimately upon the decrees of the 
Tridentine and Vatican Councils. 

Conc. TRIDENT, Sess. iv, Decret. de Canon. Script.: ‘ Sacro- 
sancta oecumenica et generalis Tridentina synodus . .. omnes 
libros tam veteris quam novi testamenti... pari pietatis 
affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur. [Segudtur Index 
LL. SS. ‘Genesis... Esdrae primus et secundus, qui dicitur 
Nehemias, Tobias, Judith, Esther . . . Sapientia, Ecclesiasticus 
. +. Jeremias cum Baruch... Daniel... duo Machabaeorum 
primus et secundus’...] ‘Si quis autem libros ipsos integros 
cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ecclesia catholica legi 
consueverunt, et in veteri vulgata latina editione habentur, 
pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit ... anathema sit.’ 

CONC. VATIC. Sess. iii. cap. 2, De Revelatione: ‘ Haec porro 
supernaturalis revelatio secundum universalis Ecclesiae fidem, 
a sancta Tridentina Synodo declaratam, continetur in libris 
sanctis.... Qui quidem veteris et novi Testamenti libri integri 
cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ejusdem Concilii decreto 
recensentur, et in veteri vulgata latina editione habentur, pro 
sacris et canonicis suscipiendi sunt. Eos vero Ecclesia pro 
sacris et canonicis habet, non ideo, quod sola humana in- 
dustria concinnati, sua deinde autoritate sint approbati; nec 
ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant ; sed 
propterea, quod Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti Deum 
habent auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi Ecclesiae traditi sunt.’ 


Note B. 275 


Now, while I think that we may prefer the terms of our 
own Article, at the same time I confess that the Roman 
definitions on this head do not seem to be irreconcilable with 
fact and history, or to be such as need divide Churches. All 
that is asserted is that the longer list of the Books of Holy 
Scripture has been received in the Church as Canonical 
(7.6. as Divinely inspired). As a matter of history this is 
true: the longer list was so received by the main body of 
Christians down to the Reformation. And as this statement 
is not accompanied by any definition of Inspiration or of 
what is implied in Canonicity, it seems to leave room for the 
attribution to the different books of different degrees of value 
and authority. It may be the case that this is not implied 
in the term Deuterocanonical ; but it is also not excluded by 
it. If ‘Canonical’ means regarded by the Church as pos- 
sessing inspiration, then it may be correct to say that 
Canonicity does not admit of degrees: a book either pos- 
sesses inspiration or it does not: but it is another question 
whether there may not be degrees of authority and value in 
the products of inspiration. And I understand that this is 
left an open question. Compare especially what is said by 
M. Loisy on p. 212 as to the evidence furnished by the Acts 
of the Council of Trent to the intentions of the Council :— 

‘En déclarant tous les Livres saints également canoniques, 
le concile n’a pas prétendu supprimer entre eux toute dis- 
tinction, et il n’a ni pensé ni voulu condamner d'une maniére 
sénérale les anciens auteurs qui ne recevaient pas dans leur 
canon les deutérocanoniques. Les Actes sont formels a cet 
égard. Dans la congrégation générale du 12 février, la 
majorité décide, au sujet de la distinction a faire entre les 
livres “ qu’on laissera cette question comme les saints Peres 
nous l’ont laissée”; dans la congrégation générale du 27 mars, 
on rappelle cette résolution et on l’explique par “la difficulte 
du sujet”; et la congrégation générale du 1° avril sanctionne 
les déclarations en s’opposant a ce qu’on remette en question 
ce qui a été antérieurement approuvé dans les reunions 
pléniéres. Il suit de 14 que, dans la pensée du concile, 

ez 


276 Notes to Lecture V. 


Yégalité de tous les livres au point de vue de la canonicité 
n'entraine pas leur égalité absolue a tous égards; qu'il peut 
exister entre eux des differences notables qui ne portent pas 
atteinte a leur caractére de livres canoniques; mais la déter- 
mination de ces différences est, pour le moment, une question 
d’importance secondaire, assez embrouillée d’ailleurs, et plus 
propre a défrayer les disputes de l’école qu’a fournir matiere 
aux délibérations d’un synode.’ 

M. Loisy goes on to illustrate the nature of the differences 
in question from the discussions of the Council. His whole 
book is written with conspicuous lucidity and moderation, and 
well deserves to be studicd. 


ele ΘΞΕ ΝΙΝ 


TRE GENESIS OF THE, ΝΕ TESTAMENT, 
GOSPELS, 2ND ACTS. 


‘Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative 
concerning those things which have been fulfilled (or fully established) 
among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the 
beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed 
good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately 
from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus ; 
that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein 
thou wast instructed.—S/ Luke 1. 1-4. 


I. Let us place ourselves by the side of the Evan- 
gelist, and from this elevated point let us take as 
it were a bird's-eye view of the process which he 
describes as having preceded and led up to the com- 
position of his own Gospel. 

But first we must define the point in question 
chronologically ; in other words, we must have some 
approximate idea when the preface which has just 
been read and the Gospel which it introduces were 
written. 

Roughly speaking, there are three opinions which 
may be said to be at present held: (1) that of the 
Left wing in criticism, that the Gospel dates from 


278 VI, The Gospels and Acts. 


about the year 100 A.p. or from the early years of the 
second century; (2) that of the extreme Right, that it 
was written about the year 63 a.p.; (3) the middle 
view, which would place it together with the Acts 
about the year 80 a.D. 

The only tangible argument in favour of the first of 
these views is the assumption that the author of the 
Gospel and Acts, which are now admitted to be by 
the same hand, had read the Axteguzties of Josephus, 
which were written and published about the year 
93-94. But this assumption I am not alone in 
believing to be wholly erroneous. It rests on little 
more than the fact that both writers relate or allude 
to the same events, though the differences between 
them are really more marked than the resemblances 1. 

For the date 63 a.p. there is in like manner only 
one substantial argument, that the Acts was probably 
written about the time at which the narrative con- 
tained in it ends, and of course the Gospel a little 
before. But to this there are two objections : (i) that 
the process described in the preface implies a longer 
period than would fall within the year a.p. 63; it is 
probable that the common basis of our three Synoptic 


1 Schiirer sums up the controversy by saying that either St. Luke 
has taken no notice of Josephus at all, which he thinks the simpler 
and more probable supposition, or at once forgot everything that he 
had read (ap. Keim, Aus dem Urchristenthum, 1878, p. 2; Keim him- 
self argues at length on the affirmative side: see also the authorities 
enumerated by Holtzmann, £7nlectung, Ὁ. 374, ed. 3, and Lightfoot, 
art. ‘Acts of the Apostles’ in Dict. of Bib. i. 1. 39, ed. 2). A very 
full résame’ of the question is given by Clemen, Chronologie d. Paulin. 
Briefe, Halle, 1893, p. 66 ff. 


Date of St. Luke. 279 


Gospels was itself not committed to writing so early; 
and (ii) that there is a rather strong presumption that 
the Gospel was written after and not before the Fall 
of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. 

These considerations, which appear to me to be 
sound, turn the scale in favour of the third view; 
which would be more precisely that the Acts was 
written about 80 a.p. and the Gospel some time in 
the five years preceding. 

We look back then across that great catastrophe, 
the ruin of the Jewish state and nation; and we see 
that among Christians there has been considerable 
activity on the lines which the Evangelist himself 
is following. He evidently knows of a number of 
attempts to narrate the Life of Christ, or what we 
should call ‘Gospels.’ They need not all have been 
as extensive as our Gospels, but the words used (ἀνα- 
τάξασθαι διήγησιν) imply connected written narratives, 
something more formal than mere notes, and something 
more fixed than oral tradition. Among these written 
narratives there would naturally be some which the 
Evangelist—whom I will venture hereafter to call, as 
I believe that he is rightly called, St. Luke—took as 
his authorities in the composition of his own Gospel. 
When he speaks of recording the events as they had 
been ‘delivered’ or ‘handed down’ by those who 
‘from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers 
of the word, there is nothing to prevent this ‘handing 
down’ from being partially at least in writing. The 
tradition might be oral, or might be written; but as it 
had been made clear just before that there were in 


280 VI, The Gospels and Acts. 


circulation a number of written documents, we may be 
sure that some of these would be made use of, even 
though they may not have been to St. Luke’s mind 
wholly satisfactory—at least not such as to deter him 
from making a new attempt. We cannot be surprised 
at this, because we find on looking at our present 
Gospels that, although St. Luke covers to a con- 
siderable extent the same ground as St. Matthew 
and St. Mark, he yet adds to both of them sections of 
great interest, which alone would be amply sufficient 
justification for him in writing. 

Had St. Luke those two other Gospels before him ? 
Is there any proof that documents bearing those 
names were in circulation before he wrote? We 
look about for side lights; and we find among the 
scanty remains of literature which have come down 
to us from the age succeeding the Apostles, two re- 
markable statements by the Bishop of Hierapolis in 
Phrygia, writing about or not later than the year 
125 A.D. One of these statements is expressly re- 
ferred to an informant who must have been a person 
of note belonging to an elder generation than his own. 
The second statement may and perhaps probably does 
come from the same source as the first', but need not 
do so necessarily. This writer tells us that St. Mark 
‘having become interpreter of St. Peter’ (z.¢e. probably 
what the words would strictly mean, the helper of the 
Apostle in putting what he wished to say into more 
finished Greek or into Latin) ‘wrote down as far as 
he remembered accurately, though not in order, the 


? Weiffenbach, Die Papias-fragmenie (Berlin, ἢ, d.), p. 12. 


The Synoptic Problem. 281 


things said or done by Christ.’ And he goes on to 
explain that these notes were made from the occasional 
preaching’ of St. Peter. He further proceeds to’ ‘tell 
us that St. Matthew ‘composed the oracles of the 
Lord in Hebrew (ov Aramaic), and that every one 
interpreted them as he was able 3, 

These statements are of course very familiar ground 
to students of the Synoptic problem. They at once 
raise a number of questions as to the relation of the 
documents so described to the Gospels which bear the 
names of St. Mark and St. Matthew.: And as a 
necessary preliminary to answering these we are 
thrown back upon a close literary analysis of the 
relation of all three Gospels to each other. That 
analysis has been going on more or less upon its 
present lines for quite thirty years, and yet I cannot 
take upon myself to say that any completely accept- 
able result has been arrived at. ‘The latest researches 
have in fact had rather the effect of opening up new 
questions than of closing old ones. The problem is 
indeed one of extraordinary difficulty and complexity. 
I do not of course mean that there are not some con- 
clusions which seem to disengage themselves, but 
even these to one who tries to look at the whole 
subject impartially are so crossed by conflicting indi- 
cations, that I should not in my present responsible 
position and with my present degree of knowledge and 
insight like to propound them for your acceptance 5, 


Pus. 27. 2. ii. 50. ΤΕ: 2 Lbid. § 16. 
* A survey of the present position of the question, as I conceive it, 
is given in the supplemental art. ‘Gospe's’ in Dict. of Bid. i. 2. 


282 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


It must not be thought that I despair of a solution. 
I greatly hope that before very long a sustained and 
combined effort, for which the circumstances are now 
particularly favourable, may be made to grapple at 
close quarters with the difficulties and wring from 
them a better result than has been obtained hitherto. 
If we do not do it, others will, because attention is 
being very much directed to the subject. I would 
however lay stress on the hopes which I entertain 
from combination. I feel sure that more could be 
done in this way than by individual efforts however 
skilful. 

So far I have spoken of the scientific problem of 
the origin and composition of the Synoptic Gospels. 
But no doubt the more pressing question, and the 
question which will have the deeper interest for those 
who hear me, is not as to the origin of any of the 
Gospels but as to their historical character. Ultimately 
there is sure to be some connexion between the two 
questions. And for myself, I deprecate positive pro- 
nouncements about the miracles or any other part of 
the Gospel narrative, which must be devoid of a 
‘strict scientific basis until the analysis of the sources 
is completed. At the same time, for those whose 
faith cannot wait for the results of scientific analysis 
I would venture to say a word of reassurance. I could 
not at this moment undertake to pronounce upon the 
relation of the statements of Papias to our first two 


1217-1243; also in a briefer and more popular form in the Intro- 
ductions to the Synoptic Gospels in Book dy Book, and in a series of 
articles in Zhe Expositor, 1891, i. 81 ff., 179 ff., 302 ff., 345 fi., 411 ff. 


Criticism of the Gospels. 283 


Gospels. I could not undertake to pronounce upon 
the origin and structure of the three Synoptics. Com- 
posite I believe they are; the First and Third cer- 
tainly, the Second probably. But how composed is 
a question which I should be obliged to reserve. On 
this point however I can speak with great confidence, 
though I cannot claim to have collected the materials 
for the argument as fully as I hope some day to do— 
that the great mass of the narrative in the First Three 
Gospels took its shape before the Destruction of 
Jerusalem, z.¢. within less than forty years of the 
events. 

We possess for historical criticism a singular advan- 
tage. In the middle of the period during which the 
Gospels must have been composed there took place 
this tremendous, world-shaking catastrophe, which 
stretches like a chasm across the history, with a wholly 
different state of things on each side of it. On one side 
the splendid temple of Herod, with its magnificent ser- 
vices regularly attended by streams of pilgrims from far 
and near; a system of feasts of which the temple was 
the centre; the Sanhedrin in full power ; an elaborate 
hierarchy of priests, jealously watched by the party of 
the Scribes and Pharisees; traces of a number of 
other parties; the patriots, excited, turbulent, san- 
guine; another party ‘die Stillen im Lande,’ quiet, 
patient, God-fearing people, scattered in ones and 
twos about the country, eagerly cherishing the Mes- 
sianic expectation, but with no temptation to political 
excitement and disorder; yet another party of Hel- 
lenizers, adherents of the dynasty of the Herods, 


284 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


a party of some strength during the early years of 
the century and elated, as we may believe, by the brief 
reion of Herod Agrippa I (41-44 a.p.), but after that 
date dwindling, and by the Fall of Jerusalem abolished 
off the face of the earth. This on the one side; and 
on the other side, the temple an utter ruin; its sacri- 
fices and services stopped; Jerusalem no longer the 
centre of pilgrimages, except to forlorn souls like the 
author of the Apocalypse of Baruch, whom we might 
imagine coming to weep over its ashes; the whole 
order of priests, such as survived, deprived of their 
occupation; the party of fanatical patriots stamped 
out in blood; the Messianic hope not wholly crushed, 
but in part still cherished with increased but now 
anxious longing, and in part passed over to the 
rapidly rising sect of Christians, which no longer has 
its centre of gravity at Palestine, but has already struck 
deep roots far away, in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, 
Rome; the one spiritual rallying-point of the nation 
now identified with the Rabbinical school at Jamnia 
and its teachers. 

Was there ever an easier problem for the critic to 
decide whether the sayings and narratives which lie 
before him come from the one side of this chasm or 
the other ? ‘If therefore thou art offering thy gift at 
the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath 
aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the 
altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, 
and then come and offer thy gift!’ ‘Woe unto you, 
ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by 


? Matt. v. 23, 24. 


Criticism of the Gospels. 285 


the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear 
by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools 
and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the 
temple that hath sanctified the gold?’ A leper is 
cleansed: ‘ And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no 
man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and 
offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony 
unto them *.’ ‘And when the days of their purification 
according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they 
brought Him up to Jerusalem, to present Him to the 
Bord was and, to;ofier ἃ. sacrifice: according, toxthat 
which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtle- 
doves, or two young pigeons *.’ ‘And there was one 
Anna, a prophetess . . . which departed not from the 
temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications 
night and day. And coming up at that very hour she 
gave thanks unto God, and spake of Him to all them 
that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem +’ 
‘And they send unto Him certain of the Pharisees and 
of the Herodians, that they might catch Him in talk. 
And when they were come, they say unto Him... 
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? ?’ 
‘Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through 
the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come®.’ 

I might spend a great part of the morning quoting 
sentences of this kind the significance of which lies 
quite upon the surface. But really it is an elementary 
exercise in criticism which any one may practise for 


Fait. Kx 16; 17. * Luke ii. 36-38. 
2 Tord. viii. 4.  Mark/xiy 12, 12. 
3. Luke ii. 22, 24. Ὁ Wiattx 12 3° 


286 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


himself. All it needs is a New Testament and a 
pencil, backed by some realization of the conditions 
which I have described and some hesitation to assume 
among the peasants of Palestine unlimited historical 
knowledge and dramatic imagination. 

It will be observed that the passages quoted are 
taken from all three Gospels and are of all kinds— 
some belonging to the common matter of all three 
Gospels, some to the double narrative, and some to a 
portion peculiar to a single Evangelist. These last 
are the more interesting because they are taken from 
the first two chapters of St. Luke, chapters which 
stand quite alone and the history of which is un- 
corroborated. Yet the instances I have given—and 
they might be easily and largely added to—show that 
they represent truly, and indeed with minute truth, the 
situation as it was at the Birth of Christ, a situation of 
which after the year 70 a.p. the very elements must 
soon have been forgotten, 

What I contend for is not at once and necessarily 
that the sayings and acts in question took place 
exactly as they are recorded, nor yet that they may 
not have passed from one document to another, or 
that the documents in which we now have them may not 
be later than the year 70, but that the moment at 
which they took their substantial shape either through 
being committed to writing or by becoming stereo- 
typed in the mind of a person who afterwards committed 
them to writing, was a moment at which the surround- 
ing and formative conditions were those of the period 
before and not after the Fall of Jerusalem. I have 


Criticism of the Gospels. 287 


not quoted from the Fourth Gospel, though I might 
just as easily have done so; and the inference would 
have been the same, that the narrative in that Gospel, 
whenever it was set down upon paper, assumed 
substantially the shape in which we have it under 
conditions similar to those which lie behind the 
Synoptic Gospels, and bearing even stronger marks 
of originality and nearness to the facts 1. 

Another phenomenon in the Gospels, which is I 
confess to me very wonderful and a striking proof of 
the early date and authentic character of their con- 
tents, is the way in which they preserve a terminology 
of their own quite distinct from that which is current 
in the Church all around them. In the period during 
which the Gospel-tradition was being gradually com- 
mitted to writing the Church possessed teachers of 
commanding power who were framing theological 
systems and impressing them upon their disciples. 
We have only to think of St. Paul and St. John and 
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in 
a somewhat less degree of St. Peter and St. James. 
Each of these writers has his characteristic vocabulary. 
And I do not think that we could have been at all 
surprised if traces of these several vocabularies had 
been found in the Gospels. To a certain extent such 
traces are found in the Gospel of St. John, and in 
a less and I think not at all suspicious degree in the 
Gospel of St. Luke compared with the Epistles of 
St. Paul, But looking at the Gospels as a whole, 


1 Instances are given in Zhe Expositor, 1892, i. 293-296. 


288 , VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


how small is the impression which has been thus made . 
upon them! And how distinct and easily recognisable 
is their own characteristic vocabulary 1! 

Take for instance a term, like ‘the Son of Man.’ 
We know how constantly it occurs in the Gospels. 
In the Epistles, Pauline and Catholic together, it 
never occurs at all, unless perhaps it is obliquely 
hinted at in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 6), 
In the Acts it occurs once in the exclamation of 
St. Stephen (vil. 56), and it is found twice in the 
Apocalypse (i. 13, xiv. 14) in places where the refer- 
ence is almost as much to the Book of Daniel as to 
the Gospel tradition. Another phrase, ‘the kingdom 
of God’ or ‘of heaven, occurs it is true more fre- 
quently in the Epistles, but by no means so frequently 
in proportion as in the Gospels. The relation here 
is just what we might expect. The ‘doctrine of the 
kingdom’ is taken for granted in the Epistles, as 
something fundamental which does not need to be 
repeated. It has been pointed out by Weizsacker? 
that the regular word for disciples, μαθηταί, though 
constantly used in the Gospels and Acts, disappears 


1 Since this was written I see that von Soden in an essay contri- 
buted to the volume in honour of Weizsicker (Zheol. Abhandl. &c., 
p- 113 ff.) has instituted a detailed comparison of the terminology of 
the Gospels and the Epistles. The result is on the whole confirmatory 
of what is said above. The main body of the Gospels shows remark- 
ably little contact with the Epistles. ‘This becomes somewhat greater 
in certain outlying portions; but here I suspect that von Soden 
presses the contact too far. For some further remarks on this essay 
see below, p. 317 ἵν 

2 Apost. Zettalt. p. 36. 


Criticism of the Gospels. 289 


entirely from the rest of the New Testament, where 
the substitutes are adeAgof and ἅγιοι], 

Then again take another of the commonest of all 
terms. We know how in the Epistles ‘ Christ’ has 
become almost a proper name. It may perhaps retain 
rather more of its true meaning than we are apt to 
realize; but if not exactly a proper name it is rapidly 
becoming one. In the Gospels, on the other hand, it 
nearly always means, as in the mouth of our Lord and 
His strict contemporaries it must have meant, ‘the 
Messiah. The point of the Gospels is that up to the 
very last all but the inner circle of the disciples are 
kept in suspense as to whether Jesus were ‘the Christ’ 
orno. The compound phrase ‘ Jesus Christ’ occurs a 
few times 5, but always with one exception (John xvii. 3), 
as it should do, in words of the Evangelist and not 
of our Lord Himself. The true phrase, the natural 
phrase in our Lord’s lifetime, is of course that which 
we find three times in St. Matthew, ‘Jesus who zs 
called Christ’ (Matt. i, 16, xxvii. 17, 22). 

Corresponding to this on the negative side is a 
point which -has been often noticed. It is a leading 
idea with the author of the Fourth Gospel that Jesus 
is the ‘Logos’ or ‘Incarnate Word of God.’ But he 


* The statistics are striking: μαθητής occurs in the Synoptic Gospels 
160 times, in St. John seventy-eight, in the Acts twenty-eight (μαθήτρια 
once), and in the other books not at all. The reason for the change is 
obvious. During the lifetime of Jesus, the disciples were called after 
their relation to Him; after His departure the names given to them 
indicated their relation to each other and to the society. 

* Matt. i. 1, 18 (v. 1.), xvi. 21 (v. 1.); Mark i.1; John i. 17, xvii: 3, 
EK. 51: 

U 


290 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


reserves this designation strictly for the prologue, 
where he is speaking in his own person, and our 
Lord is xowhere made to apply it to Himself. 

If we wish to appreciate the full force of these 
examples we have only to turn to a Gospel that was 
really composed in the second century. The Apo- 
cryphal Gospel of Peter is based upon our Gospels and 
borrows some of its terms from them (¢. g. μαθητήξ) ; 
but it is very soon apparent when the writer begins to 
walk by himself. In the Canonical Gospels the title 
Κύριος is frequently applied to our Lord by the 
disciples and others as a term of reverential address ; 
on the other hand in the narrative of the Evangelists 
it is rare—it occurs not at all in St. Matthew or the 
genuine text of St. Mark, though twice in the last 
twelve verses, eleven times (and once doubtfully) in 
the later Gospel of St. Luke, and six times in St. John. 
In the narrative of the Gospel of Peter it is the stand- 
ing title; no other is used’, ‘The malefactors whose 
knowledge of our Lord must have been of the 
smallest are made to describe Him as ‘the Saviour 
of men. ‘Twice over the word used for the ‘first day 
of the week’ is the Christian term, κυριακή, ‘the 
Lord’s day. We observe also that Herod Antipas 
is not called ‘tetrarch’ but ‘king’ (as he is indeed 
sometimes in the Canonical Gospels), and, what is of 
more importance, that the high-priests, both Annas 
and Caiaphas, drop out, and that he takes their place. 

In all these ways the contrast between the Apo- 
cryphal Gospel and the Canonical Gospels is marked. 


? Tt occurs nine times in sixty verses. 


Criticism of the Gospels. οι 


The latter are really like a ‘garden inclosed.’ [πίγι- 
sive elements seem to be carefully kept out of them. 
They preserve the type of language, as it can be 
abundantly shown that they also preserve the type 
of idea, which was appropriate just to the short three 
years of our Lord’s public ministry, and no more. 

I have no doubt that this too is a line of argument 
which can be considerably extended. I have only 
chosen those examples which are so plain that no one 
can avoid noticing them or miss their significance. 
They also go to prove that our Gospels must have 
taken their substantial shape before the Destruction of 
Jerusalem. But there are a number of other indica- 
tions which also point to that event, some as still in 
prospect, others as just past, andwhich so mark the point 
of time at which our Gospels were being composed or 
redacted. Some of these are commonplaces of criticism, 
but there is one to which I have alluded ona public occa- 
sion once before, but shall venture for the sake of illus- 
tration to allude to again. You will remember how in 
that prophecy in which the disasters of the Jewish 
nation and the Second Coming of the Son of Man are 
so closely connected, attention is called to the signs by 
which these events are to be preceded. Among these 
is one which receives a pointed application. ‘When 
therefore ye see the abomination of desolation (spoken 
of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place 
St. Matthew ; standing where it ought not «δὰ Mark)— 
let him that readeth understand, then let them that 
are in Judaea flee unto the mountains: let him that is 
on the housetop not go down to take out the things 

{2 


292 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


that are in the house, &c.! Observe that remarkable 
insertion, ‘Let him that readeth understand.’ Clearly 
it isa sort of ‘aside,’ a hint to Christians who may read 
the book to give heed to its warnings. The time has 
not yet come for them to take effect, but it is near at 
hand. We observe further that precisely the same 
insertion, the same whispered warning to the readers, 
occurs in two out of the three Gospels, and at exactly 
the same place. It follows that it belongs to their 
common original, which must also have been in writing. 
I am aware that some critics speak of this apocalyptic 
discourse as a ‘fly-leaf’ circulating separately, and 
others adopt what is at the present moment a rather 
fashionable explanation, seeing in it a little Jewish 
apocalypse incorporated in the Gospels*. But there 
does not seem to be sufficient reason to detach it from 
its surroundings ; in other words, it is in all probability 
really a part of that common narrative which gives to 
our first three Gospels their strong resemblance of 
form. And it is one among many indications that this 
common narrative was composed within sight of the 
troubles which it describes, but before they had reached 
their climax. Eusebius speaks of an ‘oracle’ which 
warned the Christians to flee from Jerusalem before it 
was beleaguered*. There can be little doubt that the 
oracle in question, if it was not this very passage, 

1 Matt. xxiv. 13 ff.= Mark xiii. 14 ff.; cf. Luke xxi. 20 ff, 

2 This theory I believe dates from Weiffenbach’s Wiederkunfis- 
gedanke Jesu, Leipzig, 1873. With Weiffenbach it is bound up with 
the curious idea, which his book expounds, that the Second Coming 


which Christ predicted for Himself was really the Resurrection. 
ΤΕ ΒΚ, δῆ, il. 5.3. 


Criticism of the Gospels. 293 


was based upon it. It was not however obeyed quite 
literally, as the actual flight was ‘not to the mountains,’ 
but to Pella, a little city of Peraeat. A fact which 
again shows that the text has not been altered after 
the event. 

But indeed all three Gospels—not only the older 
documents out of which they are composed, but our 
present Gospels as we have them—lie under the 
shadow of the Fall of Jerusalem. The slight altera- 
tions which have been introduced, especially in St. 
Luke 3, defining the allusions to that event in accord- 
ance with the history, are enough to show that the 
compilers of the Gospels were alive to the correspond- 
ence between prophecy and its fulfilment. But in one 
emphatic passage reported without variation in all three 
Gospels, it seems to be expressly asserted that the 
events, not only of the Fall of Jerusalem but of the 
Coming of the Son of Man, should take place within 
the lifetime of the generation to whom they had been 
predicted *. Can we think that these words and others 
like them would have been left standing if our Gos- 
pels had been composed as late as some imagine? 
So simple an expedient as omission, in what was con- 
fessedly a selection of materials, would have raised no 
scruples and would have lain close at hand. 

Of this then I think we may rest assured, that the 


1 Holtzmann, Dre Synoptiker, p. 22. Eusebius makes the oracle 
designate Pella as the place of refuge. 

2 Cp. Luke xxi. 20 ff., compared with Matt. xxiv. 15 ff., Mark xiii. 
14 ff.; Luke xxi. 25, compared with Matt. xxiv. 29, Mark xiii. 24. 

° Matt. xxiv. 34= Mark xiii. 3o= Luke xxi. 32; cf Matt. x. 23. 


294 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


whole process of the composition of our first three 
Gospels, a process no doubt highly complicated and in 
its details obscure, must be comprised within limits of 
which the furthest is not later than the year 80 a.p.1 
The complexity and obscurity arise from the number 
of hands which have had a share in it. There were 
I suspect not only two hands, but two sets of hands, 
working under somewhat different conditions. There 
were the original authors of the primary documents, 
the ‘eyewitnesses and ministers of the word’ of whom 
St. Luke speaks, partly drawing upon the current 
tradition and partly putting an individual stamp of 
their own upon it in accordance with their own circum- 
stances. These oldest documents would not be very 
lengthy, and would soon be absorbed in longer com- 
positions. It is difficult for instance to identify the 
rough notes of St. Mark even with so much of our 
Second Gospel as lies at the base of the others. No 
doubt they were included in this, but they can hardly 
be co-extensive with it. And again, when we take 
the common matter of St. Matthew and St. Luke it 
does not seem that either Evangelist simply made 
a transcript of a single document lying before him. 
There must have been disturbing causes at work, 
probably involving the use of other documents, to 
account for the divergences both of text and order 
between them. 


1 T have not gone into the question as to the internal evidence to 
the Fourth Gospel partly from considerations of space and partly 
because I have written at some length on this subject in Zhe L’xposztor 
for 1891, ii, and 1892, i. 


Criticism of the Gospels. 295 


And then when the book leaves the hand of its 
author it is evident that in the early stages of trans- 
mission the functions of copyist and editor were 
apt to run into each other. For instance, it is not 
improbable that our St. Mark is descended from a 
copy which did not exactly reproduce its predecessor, 
even after the Gospel had assumed substantially its 
present form. It would seem that processes were 
going on very similar to those which have already 
been described in the case of the historians of the 
Old Testament, but more complex and difficult to 
unravel, because the period to which they must be 
referred was one of still greater movement and con- 
fusion, and because the number of individuals con- 
cerned in them was probably greater. 

We can form some idea of what may be called 
perhaps the pre-canonical or pre-historic age of Gospel- 
composition, z.e. the period before they had attained 
the form in which we now have them, from the traces 
of their early history as soon as they had attained it. 
There are abundant traces in the MSS. and other 
authorities for the text of the Gospels that they were 
copied at first with great freedom. Possessors of 
copies did not hesitate to add little items of tradition, 
often oral, in some cases perhaps written, which 
reached them. ‘These enriched copies would become 
the parents of a long line of ancestry, which usually 
included the texts current at the time of the invention 
of printing, and therefore also the texts which were 
translated for our Bibles. A multitude of examples 
will occur to every Biblical scholar. The English 


296 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


reader will see many of them if he will look at the 
margin of his Revised Version, or note the omissions 
in the Revised Version as compared with the Au- 
thorized. Such for instance would be the paragraph 
of the Woman taken in Adultery, the verse and a 
half which describes the moving of the waters in the 
pool of Bethesda or Bezetha, that which describes the 
Bloody Sweat in the garden of Gethsemane, the full 
expanded text of the incident of the sons of Zebedee 
and the Samaritan village, and many other minor 
instances. The variety of the authorities which sup- 
port or omit these different passages shows that they 
did not all come in at one time and under the same 
influences, but one here and another there, though 
no doubt all—at least all of any importance—early, 
while there was still a living tradition and other 
Gospels were current beside the Canonical. 

In addition to the instances which as I have said 
because they happened to have a place in the MSS. 
used by the early printers have also left their mark 
on the Authorized and Revised Versions, there are 
a number of others which were suppressed long before 
this date. Attention has of late been drawn—and very 
rightly drawn4—to a particular group of authorities, 
headed by the famous Codex Bezae at Cambridge, 
which represents a type of text which enjoyed a large 
circulation in the second century, though the character- 
istic features of it were rapidly falling out of use 
when we reach the fourth. The study of this text is 


* See besides Prof. Rendel Harris’ Study of Codex Bezae, especially 
Resch, Aussercanonische Paralleltexte su den Evangelien, Leipzig, 1893. 


Early Use of the Gospels. 297 


calculated to throw much light on the early history 
of the Gospels; and we can, as I have said, argue 
kackwards from it even beyond the point to which 
the extant authorities will carry us, because the ten- 
dencies which find expression in it are only the con- 
tinuation of tendencies which were already at work 
before our Gospels became what they are. 

I refer to all this to show that at first freedom was 
the rule, scrupulous accuracy the exception, in pro- 
pagating the text of the Gospels. Much of this may 
be due to the fact that these early copies were 
probably to a large extent the works, not of pro- 
fessional copyists but of private individuals, whose 
interest was strong in the subject-matter of what they 
wrote, and who were glad to record any stray saying 
or act of Christ which came in their way, even though 
it were not found in the copy before them. Do not 
let me convey an exaggerated idea as to the result of 
this manifold activity. It has not affected our Bibles 
to any really serious extent. Scholars are able to say 
pretty definitely, or within narrow limits, what the 
Evangelists wrote. The average opinion may be found 
expressed in the Revised Version, which is not indeed 
accepted unanimously, but the maximum of difference 
would not be great or practically important. Nor 
does it follow that all the rejected readings are neces- 
sarily devoid of historical truth. The floating tradi- 
tions and documents that were about, and from which 
the adventitious matter was obtained, doubtless con- 
tained many grains of truth. All that is meant by 
the rejection of such readings is that they were not 


298 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


part of what the Evangelists, those who brought the 
Gospels to their final shape, really wrote. Supposing 
it were the case, as was at one time thought, that one 
particular form of text was supernaturally inspired and 
free from error, and all other forms uninspired and 
fallible, then indeed it would be a difficult and pre- 
carious task to mark off this exact stratum of text 
from those which came before and after it. But as it 
is, we seek the inspiration of the Gospels elsewhere. 
No Christian needs to ask if the sayings of the Lord 
Jesus are inspired. Those sayings, and the deeds of 
mercy and love by which they were accompanied, have 
been recorded for us by honest and, as the preface to 
St. Luke also shows, careful and laborious historians. 
This praise we can claim for them; and there was 
doubtless also a Providence which watched over the 
tangled maze of collecting, adjusting, compiling, copy- 
ing and multiplying copies—who that looks at the 
Gospels as they are can doubt that a Providence has 
watched over them? But the processes in question 
were natural processes, carried out naturally. The 
Life described in the Gospels was supernatural, but 
just as the Divine in it shone through a veil of human 
flesh, so also it was capable of being related, and it 
was related, in the ‘ tongue of the children of men.’ 


The freedom of which I have been speaking was 
not confined to the scribes and copyists. It appears 
also as soon as we cross the frontier of the Canon and 
observe how the Gospels are quoted in the next 
generation after the Apostles. The little volume, 


Early Use of the Gospels. 299 


commonly known as the Apostolic Fathers, which 
contains all that has come down to us from this early 
date, presents a problem which is not yet altogether 
solved. Quotations from the Gospels are not numer- 
ous. Most of them are taken from the Sermon on 
the Mount. And although there is on the whole 
sufficient reason for believing that the writers were 
acquainted with our present Synoptic Gospels, in any 
case their text is in several places not adhered to 
very closely. There are also some peculiar pheno- 
mena connected with these quotations. For instance, 
Clement of Rome quotes several verses which look 
like a combination of the texts of St. Matthew and 
St. Luke in an order which does not quite agree with 
either, A portion of the same passage is quoted by 
Polycarp, and the whole by Clement of Alexandria ; 
single phrases also occur in other writers; all with 
closer resemblance among themselves than with our 
Gospels'. It must be admitted too that the form 
which the passage assumes in these writers is even 
more rounded and antithetical than it is in our Bibles. 
What is the explanation of this? There are two com- 
peting views. One is that Clement of Rome quoted in 
the first instance freely from memory; that Polycarp 
and Clement of Alexandria were both familiar with his 
Epistle 3, and that the way in which they reproduced 
the original was influenced by it; that in fact another 
version obtained currency all through the one free 


1 See Resch, Agrapha, pp. 96 f., 136 ff.; Lxposzfor, 1891, i. 417 ff. 
3 This was certainly the case with Clement of Alexandria; the 
Epistle of Polycarp is too short to enable us to judge. 


300 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


quotation on the part of the Roman Clement. This 
was the only explanation given by Bishop Lightfoot’. 
The alternative is that all the succession of writers 
are quoting, not from our Gospels, but from another 
document like them. This again is the only view 
entertained by a recent writer who has gone most 
elaborately into the subject, Dr. Alfred Resch? Dr. 
Resch does not however adopt the theory which found 
favour with writers like the author of Supernatural 
Religion, that the source of the quotations was an 
Apocryphal Gospel; but he thinks that this is one 
of a number of examples of the survival in use of 
one of the foundation-documents of our Synoptics, 
neither more or less than the collection of ‘Oracles’ 
which we are told was the work of the Apostle 
St. Matthew. These opposed but not mutually ex- 
clusive views are not perhaps as yet ripe for positive 
decision. Indeed, I am tempted to make a small 
addition to them. There is yet another element which 
ought perhaps to be taken into account, the element 
of calechizing 3, 

The case appears to stand thus’. It is on the 
whole probable that each of the Apostolic Fathers 
implies the use of one or other of the Synoptic Gos- 
pels. This is so not very decisively with St. Clement, 


1 In Clem. Rom. ad Cor., xiii. 2. 

2 Agrapha, ut sup. 

ὃ Reference should be made to an elaborate essay, ‘ Die Katechese 
der alten Kirche,’ by Dr. H. J. Holtzmann in Theol. Abhandlungen 
Carl von Werzsdcher gewidmet, Freiburg i. B., 1892, p. 61 ff. 

* The present writer's view of the details of the subject may be 
found in Zhe Gospels in the Second Century, London, 1876. 


Early Use of the Gospels. 391 


who however seems to have a trace of St. Mark 
as well as of the two companion Gospels. It is so 
with the Epistle of Barnabas, which has one clear 
quotation, introduced by γέγραπται, and other slighter 
reminiscences of St. Matthew. The same holds good 
for the Epistles of Ignatius, which distinctly imply the 
‘First Gospel, and in a less degree for the Epistle of 
Polycarp. The DLzdaché has more quotations; and 
here the use of both the First and the Third Gospels 
is undoubted. 

There is however a tendency apparent throughout 
this literature, marked in Clement, very marked in the 
Didaché, and marked also as we overstep the limits of 
this period in Justin, to combine together phrases from 
these two Gospels, St. Matthew and St. Luke. So 
much is this the case that the hypothesis has been 
more than once thrown out that the writers in question, 
more particularly Justin, quoted at least at times not 
from our separate Gospels but from a Harmony of thz 
Gospels4. We know that Justin’s disciple Tatian 
composed such a Harmony. That was not published 
until after Justin’s death; but it would not be im- 
probable that some sort of rough draft might have 
been used by both master and scholar before its pub- 


1 Engelhardt, ap. Weiss, Lvniettung, Ὁ. 42; Schiirer in Theol. 
Literaturzeitung, 1891, col. 66 (what Schiirer contends for is ‘eine 
Mischung des Matthius- und Lucas-Textes,’ which he thinks that at 
least in one instance Justin must have had before him in writing); 
Rendel Harris, Diatessaron of Tatian, p. 54; Gosp. in Second Ceni., 
p- 136 n. A new element is introduced into the question by the 
discovery of the Gospel of Peter, which uses all four Gospels and was 
probably used by Justin. 


302 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


lication. Indeed because Tatian composed a Harmony 
it would not follow that his was the first of its kind. 
Just as there is now known to have been a Theodotion- 
version of the LX X before Theodotion, so also there 
might be a Lzatessaron or Diatrion (not of course 
precisely under that name) before Tatian’s. Besides 
Tatian’s Harmony there was another as we know 
composed probably very soon after his by Theophilus 
of Antioch. This would show that the idea of har- 
monizing or combining the Gospels was in the air. 

There is however another, and I think perhaps 
a simpler and better explanation, suggested by the 
Lidaché. Converts to Christianity, especially converts 
from heathenism, underwent a short course of instruc- 
tion, similar to that which the Jews were in the 
habit of imparting to their proselytes, and consisting 
mainly of simple moral teaching. With the Jews 
this moral teaching took the form of an expansion 
of the Ten Commandments; with Christians there 
was added to this or inwoven with it a like sum- 
mary of teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. 
It was natural that this should be reproduced freely. 
Just as the liturgical prayers were extemporized 
on the same general pattern!, so also would the 
catechist extemporize, but as it were within a given 
framework or on a given model. Teaching like this 
would soon become familiar, as familiar as the Church 
Catechism among ourselves; and a Christian writer 
would fall unconsciously into it, without consulting his 
copy of the Gospels. 


1 Cf Lightfoot, Clement, i. 382 ff. (esp. p. 386), ed. 2. 


Early Use of the Gospels. 303 


This I suspect may have had something to do with 
the form of the early quotations. But we must beware 
of laying down any hard and fast rule. Different 
influences would be at work in different cases: some- 
times catechizing ; sometimes quotation from memory; 
sometimes the form adopted by some previous writer ; 
sometimes, we may believe, the parallel language of 
some pre-canonical or extra-canonical writing. 

But one thing does come out, and is in agreement 
with all that we have observed hitherto, that there 
was certainly no bondage to the letter of the Gospels, 
no straining after verbal exactness. The Christians 
of those days knew their Gospels; or perhaps we 
should put it that they knew 206 Gospel through the 
medium of the Gospels; but their knowledge was 
not checked and controlled by constant reference to 
the MS. 

The fact is that at first the Gospels were not studied 
or quoted for their own sake as Gospels, z.¢. as Sacred 
Books, the work of inspired men. They are valued 
not so much for themselves as for their contents, and 
especially for a part of their contents. They were 
regarded mainly as vehicles for the ‘Words of the 
Lord* Phe whole ‘stress lies upon. these: It}is 
strongly contended by a writer who has given more 
than five and twenty years of study to the early stages 
of the Gospel-tradition?, that St. Paul himself had 


1 See especially Weiss, Eunlettung, p. 24 ff., ed. 1. 

? A full and searching examination of Dr. Resch’s views on this 
subject will be found in Mr. Knowling’s Wetness of the Episiles, 
London, 1892. 


304 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


before him a written collection of these sayings. And 
it is true that he appeals to them with some frequency 
and with absolute deference as the highest rule of 
Christian faith and conduct!. But he nowhere refers 
to the literary framework in which they are set. 
Although, if he had such a document in his possession, 
it can hardly have been any other than the collection 
made by the Apostle St. Matthew, he does not make 
the slightest allusion to its authorship. He sees 
nothing of the disciple ; he thinks only of the Master. 

Perhaps it is on the whole more probable that 
St. Paul had not access to such a document as 
Dr. Resch supposes ; at least it cannot be considered 
proved that he had. But the same usage prevails 
even after the introduction of written Gospels. The 
favourite name for Gospels is Logza, ‘ Oracles of the 
Lord’; and the formula of quotation, when any is used, 
is not ‘St. Matthew writes in his Gospel’ or ‘St. Mark 
records such an act or saying,’ but only ‘remembering 
the words of the Lord Jesus,’ ‘remember what the 
Lord said in His teaching, ‘as the Lord said *.’ 

The next stage would be that which we find in the 
writings of Justin, who repeatedly refers to certain 
‘Memoirs of the Apostles, adding in one place, ‘ which 
are called Gospels*.’ The term ‘Memoirs’ covers 
narrative as well as discourse, and as a matter of fact 


1 x Thess, iv. 16; 1 Cor.) vii. 10 (cp. 12, 25), ik. Τῇ cee 
Acts xx. 35. 

2 Acts xx. 35; Clem. ad Cor. xiii. 1, xlvi. 7; Polyc. vii. 2; of 2 Pet. 
iii. 2. Further references are given by Weiss, 2171]. p. 25. 

8 Apol. i. 66; cf zbid., 33,67; Dial. c. Tryph. 100, 103, 105, 107. 


History of the name Gospels. 305 


Justin has made large use of evangelical narrative 
in forms distinctive not only of each of the four 
Canonical Gospels, but as it now appears also of the 
Gospel according to Peter, but with preference for our 
present Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. The 
Gospels are now treated as wholes ; we observe too 
that stress is laid upon their Apostolic origin. Yet the 
name ‘Memoirs’ would not seem to suggest the idea 
of special sacredness ; and although it would be wrong 
to insist upon the name alone, because Justin is 
writing for those who are not Christians and therefore 
naturally chooses a term which they will understand 
rather than one so technical as ‘Gospels,’ still his 
manner of treating them is in agreement with his 
choice of a title. They are historical authorities, 
authorities of weight as coming from Apostles, 
but not more. Only a slight use is made of the 
Gospel of Peter, but no distinction is drawn between 
it and the other Gospels. Indeed it would seem to 
be not only included among the ‘Memoirs of the 
Apostles,’ but to have itself suggested the desig- 
nation 1. 

But we must not make the mistake, which is too 
often made, of taking a single writer as representative 
of the whole body of the Church. Justin was a 
philosopher who came over to the Church with literary 


1 This was pointed out by Mr. A. C. Headlam in Zhe Guardian for 
Dec. 7, 1892, and is now widely accepted. ‘The question is discussed 
with scrupulous care by Dr. Swete (Akhmim Fragment, p. xxxiii ff.), 
who sums up in a negative sense but has to have recourse to a hypo- 
thetical version of Ps. xxil. 18 ἔβαλον λαχμόν. 

Χ 


306 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


habits already formed. His extant writings are 
addressed to persons outside the Church who would 
understand what was meant by a ‘biography’ but 
would not understand what was meant by a ‘Gospel.’ 
Hence we cannot be surprised if, so far as the name is 
concerned, he treats the Life of Christ as he would 
treat the Life of Socrates. But it by no means follows 
that Christians speaking among themselves would do 
so. Indeed he tells us that biographies of Christ had 
already received a special title—and that title was the 
appropriation of a word which had been originally 
used to denote the whole message of salvation. This 
was the title current in the Church generally, and 
Justin implies that his own name ‘Memoirs’ was 
merely a paraphrase of it adapted to his Pagan and 
Jewish readers. I do not think that we need any 
further proof than this single word ‘ Gospel, narrowed 
down from the ‘tidings of good’ which the Apostles 
spread throughout the world, first to the general 
substance of the Life of Christ, and finally to particular 
records of that Life, to show that these were never 
even from the first on the same footing with profane 
writings. It took some time to define the exact 
nature of the difference. There were certainly at first 
no special scruples connected with the wording of the 
record. But there was a latent consciousness, which 
gradually became more and more distinct, that the 
authentic records of the Life of Christ were books to 
themselves. 

This consciousness must have been already far 
advanced when Justin was writing. Soon after the 


The Canon of the Gospels. 307 


death of Justin, between Justin and Irenaeus (¢. 160- 
170 A.D.), two facts stand out which bear striking 
testimony to it. One is the Dvzatessaron of Tatian; 
the other is Heracleon’s commentary on St. John. 
When the author of Szpernatural Religion wrote in 
1874 it was possible to say 


whether justly or not, is 
another question—that there was ‘no evidence what- 
ever connecting Tatian’s Gospel with those in our 
Canon’!; and it was possible to fence with the theory 
that the Dzatessaron was only a later name for the 
Apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews*. Now 
the substance and an approximate text of the Dzates- 
saron itself lies before us; and it is found to be, as 
orthodox writers had maintained, a simple digest of 
the four Canonical Gospels with the prologue to the 
Gospel of St. John at its head. 

Much about the same time with the Dzatessaron, 
Heracleon, a disciple of Valentinus and one of the 
leaders of the Italian school of Valentinian Gnostics, 
put forth a commentary on St. John’s Gospel, in which 
it is interpreted strictly as Holy Scripture, with all 
the apparatus of allegory which by this time was 
applied to the Old Testament. There is no distinction — 
between the words of Christ and the parts of the 
Gospel which are due to the Evangelist. The latter 
are expounded as an authoritative text in the same 
manner as the former. 

But the way in which Heracleon sits down to write 


A Sup, Rel. ti, 161, ed, 6. * Ibid. Ὁ. 160. 
° See Mr. A. E. Brooke’s Fragments of Heracieon in Cambridge 
Texts and Studies, vol. i. No. 4. 


Ce 


308 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


this commentary shows that he is not introducing any 
new conception, but is acting upon one which is 
already settled and established. Nor does Heracleon 
stand alone. All the other Valentinian leaders, as 
well Ptolemaeus his colleague in the West as those 
of the Anatolic or Eastern branch of the School, our 
knowledge of which is derived from the so-called 
Excerpta Theodote, place the Fourth Gospel with the 
other Gospels on the same footing of Divine δὰ: 
thority’, The large use of this Gospel which Irenaeus 
attributes to the Valentinians generally ? is abundantly 
confirmed. But this wide-spread use among the 
disciples is hardly possible without some sanction on 
the part of the master; and what we know of the 
system of Valentinus lends support to the view that 
he too drew from the same source. 

What we may suspect for Valentinus is now, I 
think it may be said, proved for his contemporary 
and rival Basilides. A most convincing paper was 
recently read here in Oxford by Dr. Drummond of 
Manchester College on the question ‘Is Basilides 
quoted in the Phzlosophumena*?’ The affirmative 
answer which Dr. Drummond gives, and I think it 
must be agreed rightly gives to this, carries with it 
also an affirmative to the question whether Basilides 
himself and not merely his followers quoted from the 
Fourth Gospel. ; 


1 See Lxpositor, 1891, 11. 417. 
ΣΟ 7) Haer. ii, 11. ἢ. 
3 


͵ 


This paper is printed in the Journal of Biblical Liter ature (Bosion, 
U.S-A., 9892), p. 133 ff. 


The Canon of the Gospels. 309 


Here then we have, as I cannot but think, decisive 
evidence for the use of the Fourth Gospel as a sacred 
text a full-generation eariier than some scholars would 
assion to it. The epithet ‘decisive’ would not be the 
most appropriate for another highly interesting inquiry 
recently published in this country, Dr. C. Taylor's 
Flermas and the Four Gospels. Dr. Taylor maintains 
that the famous passage in Irenaeus about the ‘ fourfold 
Gospel’ was anticipated in a writing as early as the 
Shepherd of Hermas, about 140 a.p.' The Shepherd 
is from first to last an allegory, the details of which 
are significant though the writer himself only partially 
explains them; so that when the Church afterwards 
identified with the Son of God, under the figure of an 
aged woman who becomes young, is represented as 
sitting upon a bench or stool planted firmly upon four 
feet 3, there is certainly a resemblance to the place in 
Irenaeus where the Church Catholic spread through- 
out the four quarters of the earth is said to be stayed 
upon four pillars which are the Four Gospels, cor- 
responding also to the Four Cherubim over whom is 
seated the Word*. And when it is further said that 
the stool has four feet and stands strongly because the 
world also is ‘held together by four elements’ (διὰ 
τεσσαρῶν στοιχείων ἐμ, Τα; we are reminded that 


1 Dr. Salmon, Zahn, and some diners place this still earlier, 
c.100 A.D. It is probable that this opinion has something to do with 
Zahn’s summary rejection of Dr. Taylor's view, at which Dr. Resch 
expresses some surprise (Paradleliexie, p. 13). 

a ise ill 8 31.3% 

5. Tren. Adv. Haer. iii. 15. 8 (ed. Stieren; ii. 11, 12 ed. Harvey); 
Taylor, Hermas, Ὁ. 13 ff. : 


310 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


Origen compares the Four Gospels to the elements 
of the faith of the Church, of which elements the 
whole world consists4. Now we know that Irenaeus 
treats the Shepherd of Hermas as Scripture and that 
Origen treats it almost as Scripture, quoting from it 
repeatedly and mentioning the fact that some did so 
regard it. When therefore the question is asked 
whether the two later writers are wholly independent 
of the earlier or the coincidence between them is 
purely accidental, though I admit that the case is not 
so clear as to convince a gainsayer, I confess that to 
me there seems to be a real probability that they are 
not independent, and that Hermas gave the hint which 
Irenaeus and Origen have followed*. But if so, then 
Hermas also knew the fourfold Gospel, and even in 
his day the Canonical Four were detached from the 
rest. 

We come last to the newly discovered Gospel of 
Peter, which has an important bearing upon the early 
use and authority of the Four Gospels. I take it as 
proved, or at all events decidedly probable, that Justin 
used this new Gospel, not largely but yet that he did 
use it along with the others. This would fix its date as 
hardly later than the end of the first quarter of the 


1 Comm. in Ev. Joan. i. 6 (Lomm. i. 13); Taylor, Journ. of Philol. 
Xxi. 69 f. 

® This view is accepted as at least possessing some probability by 
Resch, wf sup., by Dr. T. K. Abbott in Class. Rev. 1892, p. 454, and 
by an anonymous reviewer in Zhe Academy; it is rejected by Zahn, 
Theol. Literaturblatt, 1892, col. 268 ff., by a careful critic in Zhe 
Guardian, Mar. 29, 1893, and by Holtzmann in Theol. Liferaturseidlung, 
1893, col. 228 f. 


The Canon of the Gospels. 311 


second century’. What then is the relation of the 
Gospel of Peter, so far as it has been recovered, to the 
Canonical Gospels? The przmd facte view 1 think is 
decidedly that it made use of all four®. Characteristic 
features of each of the four reappear in it—features 
so characteristic that the coincidences cannot be the 
result of accident, but point unmistakably to a con- 
nexion of some kind. The only alternative to direct 
use (for we may put aside altogether the hypothesis 
that the Gospel of Peter is prior to our Gospels) would 
be that which is adopted by Harnack and von Soden 
in a full and careful discussion of the subject, viz. that 
the writer of the Apocryphal Gospel made use not of 
our present Gospels but of the separate lines of tra- 
dition which those Gospels embody. Both Harnack 
and von Soden are of opinion that the writer had 
before him our Second Gospel; but the coincidences 
with the First, Third, and Fourth they would explain 
not by literary contact but by personal contact with 
the circle of tradition out of which each of those 
Gospels arose. There is an obvious difficulty in this 

* Similarly von Soden in Zedéschr.f. Theol. τι. Kirche, 1893, p. 91. 
On the assumption that Harnack proves his point as to the use of the 
Gospel in the Didachée and by Ignatius and Polycarp, it would then, 
von Soden thinks, be about contemporary with the rescript of Trajan 
(Gi12A-2D.): 

2 Most English critics who have expressed themselves so far take 
this view. Mr. E. N. Bennett speaks doubtfully (Class. Rev. 1893, 
Ρ. 40). M. Lods thinks that the writer uses the First and Second 
Gospels, perhaps the Third, not the Fourth (Z’ Lvangile et L’ Apocalypse 
de Pierre, p. 12). But Dr. Schiirer thinks it probable that he was 


acquainted with all four Gospels (Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1893, 
col. 35). So too Zahn in Neue kirchl. Zeitschrift, 1893, p. 190 ff. 


312 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


view. The First Gospel was no doubt composed in 
Palestine; but the Fourth Gospel, even if not the 
work’ of St. John, must have been composed at or 
near Ephesus, and the Third Gospel in one or other 
of the centres of Hellenistic Christianity. We must 
therefore suppose either that the author of the Gospel 
of Peter visited in succession Palestine, Ephesus, and 
the unknown place of origin of the Third Gospel, 
or else that the different types of tradition embodied 
in the First, Third, and Fourth Gospels went on for 
a number of years existing in their distinctness apart 
from those Gospels; in other words, that besides such 
Johannean teaching as naturally circulated round the 
person of the Apostle during the thirty years of his 
lifetime at Ephesus, the tradition which St. John had 
left behind him also preserved its distinctive features 
for a still longer period in Palestine—and in like 
manner for St. Luke and St. Matthew. This however 
is a Supposition which cannot be regarded as probable. 
In particular I doubt if such minute coincidences and 
resemblances as are found between the Gospel of 
Peter and the Canonical Gospels can be naturally 
explained in any other way than by direct literary 
dependence. 

But if so, the Gospel of Peter implies the existence 
of our Four Gospels, and except perhaps a slight 
amount of collateral tradition!, I do not see that it 


1 There is what seems to be a bit of good tradition in ὃ 7 (ed. 
Robinson,= 26 ed. Harnack): ἐγὼ δὲ pera τῶν ἑταίρων μοῦ ἐλυπούμην, καὶ 
τετρωμένοι κατὰ διάνοιαν ἐκρυβόμεθα' ἐζητούμεθα γὰρ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ὡς κακοῦργοι, 


καὶ ὡς τὸν ναὸν θέλοντες ἐμπρῆσαι. Schiirer (2 sup.) thinks that the view 


The Canon of the Gospels, 313 


implies anything else. Asa literary substratum the 
Canonical Gospels cover very nearly the whole ground 
which the Apocryphal Gospel covers. No further 
literary antecedent seems necessary. 

But if we take this view another consequence fol- 
lows. If we believe that the author of the Gospel of 
Peter started from our Four Gospels as his main 
basis, it must also be allowed that he used them with 
very great freedom! In developing the hints which 
they supplied he gave free rein to his own imagina- 
tion; he was not bound by any scruples to adhere to 
them verbally. 

Neither is there much force in the argument that 
the Petrine writer as a Docetist did not recognise 
the restrictions of Catholic tradition. The heretical 
character of the Gospel is by no means prominent *. 
It does just come out in a few slight expressions ; but 
it is surprising to find how much of the substructure 
which is really inconsistent with Docetism has been 
retained unaltered. The Gospel circulated in orthodox 


(expressed by Robinson) will not hold that the author knew no 
other Gospel besides those in the Canon. M. Lods accepts a few 
touches as coming from tradition and adds, ‘L’évangile de Pierre 
me représenterait bien les derniers temps du régne de la tradition 
orale’ (p. 79). 

1 To say this is not the same thing as to say with Harnack (p. 33) 
that the author regarded any of the Gospels as ‘eine. . zum Theil 
unglaubwiirdige Darstellung.’ 

2 In this I agrce with Mr. E. N. Bennett, Class. Rev. 1893, p. 40, 
and with M. Lods, Z’£vangile, §c., pp. 37 ff., 73 f. The resemblance 
in substance between the view expressed in this paragraph and that 
of M. Lods is so great that I ought perhaps to explain that I had 
not seen his treatise when it was written. 


314 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


communities ; and we must also remember that at the 
time when it was written there was a large tentative 
element in Christian doctrine, in regard to which, 
though the mind of the Church was clearing itself, 
it was not yet clear. We must not think of every 
heretical teacher as necessarily out of communion. 

It would therefore be hazardous to say that the 
Gospel of Peter represents Docetism but not Catholic 
Christianity. Its tendencies may be exaggerated by 
its origin, but they are not wholly due to it. We do 
not in fact need to have recourse to such a suppo- 
sition; because the phenomena which are characteristic 
of the Gospel of Peter are only just what we have 
already found to be characteristic generally of the age 
in which it arose. They may be rather more marked 
in degree; but that is all. 

The whole of this first period in the history of the 
Gospels, up to and in some cases beyond the death 
of Justin, has for its leading characteristic freedom. 
The way in which the Gospel of Peter makes use of 
the Four Gospels has its analogue in the way in whic] 
Justin makes use of the Gospel of Peter. The Gospels 
are treated primarily as historical authorities ; and his- 
torical material of any sort was welcome. A book in 
particular which bore the name of an Apostle would 
not be too closely questioned. It was really a con- 
tinuation of the state of things described by Papias, 
when a living oral tradition, by no means without 
value, ran side by side and competed with the Gospels. 
The principal difference was that the concurrence was 
now not so much of oral tradition as of writings. 


The Canon of the Gospels. 315 


It is certainly very remarkable how the Four 
Gospels are singled out, if our interpretation of the 
facts is correct, not later than the first quarter of the 
second century. When it is said ‘singled out’ there 
was naturally in this at first something vague. It 
does not seem to be more than an undefined sense 
that the Four Gospels which we call Canonical were 
superior to the rest. The use of these Gospels did 
not at first exclude the use of all others; but when 
once a line was drawn round the Four, they would 
become every day more and more predominant, until 
at last their competitors are not only degraded to a 
lower level but shut out altogether. The later stages 
in the process are graphically depicted in the story of 
Serapion!. By his time, z.e. by the end of the second 
century, the circulation of the Gospel of Peter had 
shrunk to a mere local usage; the bishop of a great 
centre like Antioch had not heard of it until it was 
specially brought to his notice ; at first he was inclined 
to let it be, until it became clear that there were 
‘eretical features in it, but that fact brings about its 
suppression. We are clearly at the point where 
Clement of Alexandria speaks of the ‘four Gospels 
handed down’ to the Church ? with a fringe of others ; 
and we are prepared for the further step which we find 
in Irenaeus and Tertullian when even that fringe is 
cut away. 

In the canonization of the Gospels there can be 
no doubt that public reading in the Churches bore an 


*Eus. 77: 7. vi. $25, p. 16 sup. 
2 Strom. ili. 13. § 93. 


316 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


important part?, We learn from Justin that already 
in his day this was practised. The Gospels were read 
by the side of the Old Testament Prophets, It is 
probable that at first this public reading was not con-: 
fined strictly to the Four Gospels. Just as the Gospel 
of Peter was read at Rhossus, so we may believe that 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews would be read 
in the Nazarene communities of Pella and the neigh- 
bourhood. But besides the watchfulness against 
heresy, the usage of the great Churches would by 
degrees thrust out the usage of the less, There would 
be a process of levelling, which would become more 
and more rapid as communication between the different 
Churches increased and the bonds of discipline which 
held them together became more firm. 

But all the time that this was going on the mere 
juxtaposition of Old and New Testament in the public: 
services would lead to the assimilation of the one to 
the other. The attributes which were ascribed to the 
writings of the Prophets would come to be ascribed 
also to the Gospels. From the very first the Gospels 
contained the elements of a Sacred Book. The 
‘Words of the Lord Jesus’ could not but be sacred. 
And it was but an easy step from the Words them- 
selves to the record of the Words. Besides, the Acts. 
recorded were equally sacred, and indeed had a still 
more momentous place in the scheme of Christian 
doctrine. The consciousness of this was evidently at 
work from the time that the biographies of Christ 
took the name of ‘ Gospels,’ ὦ. almost as far back as 


1 See especially Zahn, Gesch. d. Α΄. i. 141 ff. 


The Canon of the Gospels. 317 


‘we can trace them? It is significant that this title 
is shared by the Canonical Biographies with those 
which were not ultimately ratified as Canonical. This 
alone would tend to show that it was an established 
usage before the marking out of the fourfold Gospel. 
From this early date there was thus the germ, already 
large and strongly developed, of the full conception 
which we find at the end of the century, according to 
which the Gospels are treated in all their parts as 
sacred and as not admitting possibilities of mutual 
collision or error. We have seen that this was not | 
the universal doctrine®. It was not a doctrine scien- 
tifically defined or embodied in any authoritative 
formula; but it was no doubt widely current, and 
might be said to represent the general mind of the 
Church. 

At the same time we cannot forget the simple 

natural way in which St. Luke speaks in his preface. 
For his record, as a record, he claims no supernatural 
aid. He does claim those human qualities which 
would make such a record valuable. He does claim 
care and research extended over the whole of the 
events which his history covers. He does claim— 
what for us is most important—to have gone to those 
who were eyewitnesses of the facts or who helped in 
the early preaching of them 3, 
"1 The earliest instances of the use of εὐαγγέλιον in the sense of 
a book would be, Drd.'8, ΤΙ, 15 d7s; Ign. Philad. 5,8. Dr. Taylor 
(Wiin. of Herm. p. 6) compares ἀγγελία ἀγαθή in Herm. Vis. iii. 13. 2. 

"Ὁ Lecture I, p. 46 sup. 


“8 The question how far the Gospels represent a strictly historical 
interest is fully discussed by von Soden in the essay mentioned above 


318 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


Neither can we forget that the way in which the 
Gospels were treated for a full half-century at the 
lowest estimate after they were written is in complete 
agreement with the account thus given of them. They 
are treated as histories, the best histories current, 
but still not such as excluded all others or repelled all 
possibilities of improvement for themselves. If once 
we give up the strict verbal accuracy of every detail, 
and do not multiply incidents to an incredible extent 
merely in order to satisfy every difference of expres- 
sion in the Gospels, they will themselves reveal to us 
their true character. There is a rather wide margin 
in their narratives which is not in perfect harmony. 
The attempts to harmonize them in a strict sense 
have notoriously failed. The Gospels are what the 
attempts to unravel the history of their origin would 
lead us to expect that they would be, not infallible, but 
yet broadly speaking good and true records of those 
Words which are the highest authority for Christians, 
and of that Life on which they base their hopes of 
redemption. 


II. All that applies to the third Gospel of course 
applies also to the Acts. Both works are certainly by 
the same author; they are addressed to the same 


(p. 288). He reduces this quite to a minimum, We observe however 
(1) that his conception of history is very narrow and modern; the idea 
of history with him excludes the didactic element, which with the 
Biblical writers is rarely absent ; (2) that he regards as products of 
deliberate invention many sections which most of us would consider 
to be simple history; (3) that he, strangely enough, makes (to the 
best of my belief) no allusion whatever to St. Luke's preface! 


Criticism of the Acts. 319 


person!; they maintain the same general character; 
and if we are to accept one of the theories most 
recently put forward they make use not only of similar 
documents but of one and the same document, of 
which there are large traces in the earlier treatise, 
but which also extends a long way into the later *. 

I leave this theory and all other theories relating to 
the Acts an open question. It is with the Acts as it 
it is with the Gospels; I do not think that we can 
accept any theory as completely and _ satisfactorily 
proved. There is no book of the New Testament 
on which I more wish to see a Commentary under- 
taken by some really competent English or American 
scholar on the scale of those which we have on other 
books by Bishops Lightfoot and Westcott and Pro- 
fessor J. B. Mayor. ‘The commentaries which exist in 
English already are wholly inadequate ὃ, 

My reason for expressing this wish is that the 
work on the Acts has hitherto been almost entirely 
in the hands of the Germans; and although some 
progress has been made and more reasonable views 


1 Some would make ‘ Theophilus’ an ideal personage, like Bp. 
Chr. Wordsworth’s ‘Theophilus Anglicanus.’ Bp. Lightfoot seems 
to incline to this view (Dict. of Bid.i. τ. 25 f., ed. 2). But it hardly 
seems consistent with the epithet κράτιστε which is commonly applied 
- to persons of high official rank. 

51 refer to the theory of Feine, Zvne vorkanonische Quelle des Lukas 
in Evangelium u. Apostelgeschichte, Gotha, 1891: see below. 

° There is a scholarly little edition by Mr. T. E. Page (London, 
1886), and the commentary of Dr. H. B. Hackett (Boston, U.S.A.) was 
good in its day, but it was first published in 1852 (new ed. 1863). 
Bp. Lightfoot’s article in the new edition of the Dictionary of the Bible 
is a valuable addition to the list since the words in the text were written. 


320 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


are beginning to prevail, even in Germany there is 
at present something like a deadlock, and I strongly 
suspect that with the methods on which the inquiry 
has been pursued a deadlock is inevitable. 

I yield to no one in admiration for the Germans 
or in gratitude to them for their great services, of 
which I have continually availed myself both in these 
lectures and elsewhere. I am almost ashamed to 
mingle acknowledgment with what may seem to be 
depreciation of those who have borne the burden and 
heat of the day as they have done. But still it must 
be admitted that German criticism has its defects; 
and those defects seem to be specially prominent in 
their treatment of the Acts. 

The fault seems to lie in the standard by which the 
writer of the book is judged. I mean not only that 
it is a severe standard—this is perhaps a natural 
survival of the time when every Biblical writer was 
expected to be not only veracious but infallible—but 
that it is an unreal and artificial standard, the standard 
of the nineteenth century rather than the first, of 
Germany rather than of Palestine, of the lamp and 
the study rather than of active life. 

Let me illustrate what I mean by four of the leading 
charges which are brought against the author: (1) the 
charge that he does not understand the antagonisms 
of the Apostolic age; (2) the charge that his state- 
ments conflict with those in St. Paul’s Epistles; (3) 
the charge that the histories of St. Peter and St. Paul 
are artificially balanced against each other; (4) the 
charge that the differences between St. Paul and the 


Criticism of the Acts. 321 


other Apostles have been ignored or glossed over. 
Every one of these charges I believe contains a large 
element of exaggeration. 

(1) I greatly doubt if an Englishman would accuse 
the author of the Acts of not understanding the an- 
tagonisms of the Apostolic age. He is not himself 
too quick to understand the antagonisms, z.¢. the 
hidden conflicting tendencies and movements of any 
age. He is too easily content with a simple straight- 
forward narrative. To burrow beneath the surface is 
a specialty of the Germans. It is one which they 
have exercised with excellent results. But it is 
another thing to require the gifts of a German Pro- 
fessor in an early Christian situated like the author 
of the Acts. 

Looking at the matter with such a measure of 
intelligence as I can command for myself, I should say 
that the Acts showed on the whole a very good under- 
standing of the different opposing forces which brought 
the history to the point at which the author left it. 
It is not such an understanding as may be obtained 
from the writings of a leader of so much depth and 
originality as St. Paul. It is rather the understand- 
ing of an average, well-intentioned, painstaking man 
approaching things from without rather than from 
within. But as such I confess that it seems to me 
in many respects surprisingly good. 

The first instance of any friction at all inside the 
Church is that between the widows of the Hellenistic 
Jews and those of the native-born Palestinians. This 
is exactly what we might expect. The division is just 

Y 


322 VI, The Gospels and Acts. 


that which would be most prominent in the Church at 
Jerusalem, where Hellenistic Jews would be specially 
numerous and specially open to the preaching of 
Christianity, And the whole manner in which the 
dispute arose grows as naturally out of the circum- 
stances of the early Church as possible. Every line 
of the story of St. Stephen bears verisimilitude upon 
the face of it—the arguments conducted in the 
synagogues specially constructed for the use of 
Hellenistic pilgrims; the accusations brought against 
St. Stephen; his spirited defence and martyrdom. 
Then we have the Pharisaic persecution, which was 
sure to come sooner or later, and which is thrown into 
relief by the friendly relations which are described as 
existing up to this point between the Christians and 
the mass of the populace. The comparatively easy 
terms on which throughout the Acts, except at certain 
definite crises, the Christians of Jerusalem are repre- 
sented as living with the mass of their unbelieving 
neighbours, is a strikingly authentic touch, and in 
strong contrast to the state of things when the Acts 
was written. 

Then we have, just in their proper place, certain 
tentative steps which show that another inevitable 
question was beginning to be raised, the question 
what was to be done first with proselytes and after- 
wards with direct converts from heathenism. When 
the Acts was written these questions had all long 
been settled, and it is to me surprising that the writer 
should have kept the proportions and order of de- 
velopment so well as he has. 


e+ 


Criticism of the Acts. 323 


The great controversy of the Apostolic age is no 
doubt the question of circumcision, which culminates 
in ch. xv. I do not see how this could be introduced 
more naturally than it is. The question first comes 
to a head at Antioch, and in connexion with St. Paul’s 
first mission among the heathen. ‘And certain men 
came down from Judaea and taught the brethren, 
saying, Except ye be circumcised after the custom of 
Moses, ye cannot be saved,’ ‘But there rose up 
certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed, 
saying, It is needful to circumcise them, and to charge 
them to keep the law of Moses'.’ By the year 80 there 
would be not much question of converts from among 
the Pharisees; but the writer has hit exactly the class 
among whom the difficulty was sure to arise. 

But then, it is said, the writer does not understand 
the deep theological teaching of St. Paul. To expect 
him fully to understand it is to expect too much. 
And to suppose that St. Paul was always in the frame 
of mind in which he was when he wrote the Epistle to 
the Galatians is an error. And yet I do not know 
that it would be easy to sum up St. Paul's teaching 
in a brief form more satisfactorily than is done in the 
speech at Antioch of Pisidia: ‘Be it known unto you 
therefore, brethren, that through this Man is pro- 
claimed unto you remission of sins: and by Him 
every one that believeth is justified from all things, 
from which ye could not be justified by the law of 
Moses’ (Acts xiii. 38 f.). 

But what of St. Peter and St. James? They are 


PACES Vo Totes 
Ὺ 2 


324 V1. The Gospels and Acts. 


represented as playing the kind of part which it is 
extremely probable that they did play as a matter 
of fact. The point which told decisively with them 
was just the point which was likely to tell with 
responsible leaders, the overwhelming actual success 
of St. Paul’s preaching among the Gentiles. Every 
single document which we possess represents St. Peter 
as an impressible person, who would not take up any 
position too obstinately. And we see St. James 
anxiously mediating, as a good man in his place 
must have done, between St. Paul and the believing 
Jews who are zealous for the law (Acts xxi. 20). 
St. Paul it is impossible to doubt—in fact we have 
his own word for it'—met the Judaean Apostles half- 
way, and did all that he could to keep the Christian 
Church together τὸ 


1 1 Cor. ix. 20: a passage to which some of our German friends 
find it very hard to do justice (Schiirer, however, is an exception; see 
his excellent remarks in Theol. Literaturzettung, 1882, col. 348). 

? The following are weighty words by one of the greatest scholars 
of our day: ‘Both St. Paul’s character and his work are grievously 
misjudged when they are interpreted exclusively by his zealous 
championship of Gentile liberties. This fidelity to the special trust 
which he had received was balanced by an anxiety to avert a breach 
between the Christians of Palestine, for whom the Law remained 
binding while the Temple was still standing, and the Gentile 
Christians of other lands; to promote kindly recognition on the one 
side and brotherly help on the other. Such a breach, he doubtless 
felt, would have cut Gentile Christianity away from its Divinely 
prepared base, and sent it adrift as a new religion founded by him- 
self’ (Zhe Sense and Service of Membership, &c., a Sermon preached 
at the Consecration of Bp. Westcott by Dr. F. J. A. Hort, London, 
1890, p. 5 f.). The context, which traces the development of this 
thought in the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians, is well 
deserving of study. 


Criticism of the Acts. 325 


The critics of the Acts, at least many of them, write 
like men who had never had any practical experience 
of affairs and whose one idea of action was that of a 
rigid theoretical consistency. How different the real 
course of public business is from this—whatever its 
nature, whether ecclesiastical or political—is a lesson 
which Englishmen at least do not need teaching. 

(2) I must abridge what I have to say on so wide a 
field as the comparison of the Acts with St. Paul’s 
Epistles. It is true that there are differences, and 
perhaps somewhat considerable differences. But for 
every such point of difference it would be easy to 
bring at least four of striking coincidence and har- 
mony. Of the arguments which were put forward in 
Paley’s Horae Paulinae and in Professor Blunt's 
Undesigned Coincidences, a great number still hold 
good! They are ignored, partly because they are 
external, and partly because they are one-sided. No 
doubt they do not enable us to understand the prin- 
ciples at work in the Apostolic age—to do that would 
require different methods. And no doubt they are 
also apologetic and forensic. The writers do not 
profess to adduce all the instances they can on the 


* See also the comparison of the Acts with St. Paul’s Epistles in 
Lechler, Das Apostolische Zeitalter, p. 12 ff., ed. 3. ‘Any writer... 
who will take the pains to go carefully over Paley’s discussion of the 
passages relating to the contributions for the Christian poor at Jerusa- 
lem, observing how they dovetail into one another, may satisfy himself 
of the validity of the argument. Yet it is plain that the writer of the 
Acts was unacquainted with these Epistles, or at all events that, if 
he had ever seen them, he made no use of them in compiling his 
history’ (Lightfoot, wf sup. p. 34). 


326 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


other side. But so far as they go, they are a per- 
fectly sound vindication of the trustworthiness of the 
Apostolic history, which the instances on the contrary 
part would not avail to shatter. These instances only 
need to be judged in a human and reasonable spirit. 
It may be proved ex adundante that St. Luke did not 
know everything that happened in the period which 
his history covers. His knowledge was naturally 
limited by his materials, and those materials collected 
in an age which had not telegraphic communication 
with every part of the globe, and daily papers de- 
livered regularly every morning. He had something 
more to do than simply make cuttings of everything 
that interested him. He belonged to a society which 
was not naturally literary. He would often have to 
depend on a few rough notes or scraps of narrative, 
put together by an unpractised hand, and eked out by 
hearsay and personal recollections. And then his 
informants might be rather spectators from without 
than actors in the innermost circle of the events which 
they describe. When due allowance is made for such 
considerations as these, a study of St. Paul’s Epistles 
may raise our opinion of the historical character of the 
Acts, but it certainly will not lower it. 

(3) It used to be contended that the history of the 
Acts was a purely artificial construction in which every 
act or speech or miracle of St. Peter had its counter- 
part in some act or speech or miracle of St. Paul, 
with the inference that imagination bore a far larger 
part in both halves of the narrative than fact. This 
however is an argument which is now almost wholly 


Criticism of the Acts. 324 


given up’. It is seen that on the one hand such 
complete correspondence can only be made out by 
much straining and exaggeration, and on the other 
hand that such real correspondence as remains was 
not more than might be expected in any age from 
simple parity of situation and conditions. There was 
nothing to cast valid suspicion on the historian’s 
veracity. 

(4) And in like manner as to the last of the objec- 
tions which I enumerated. Granting that the differ- 
ences between St. Paul and his opponents may have 
had their edge somewhat blunted, is not this just 
what must have happened from mere lapse of time if 
from nothing else? There is probably many a man 
who could write szze tra οὐ studio about the Disestab- 
lishment of the Irish Church, whose feelings would be 
far more keenly moved by the threat of a like measure 


' IT may quote the following from a very disinterested writer: ‘In 
Wahrheit freilich ist eine Abhangigkeit beider Erzihlungskreise von 
einander nur auf ganz wenigen Punkten, namentlich in der Darstellung 
der Lahmenheilungen iii. 2 ff. and xiv. 8 ff., an vielen anderen Stellen 
aber, so zwischen der Verfluchung von Ananias und Sapphira v. 1 ff. 
und der Blendung des Elymas xiii. 6 ff., der Anbetung des Petrus 
durch Cornelius x. 25, und des Paulus in Lystra xiv. 11 ff., nicht 
einmal irgend eine nahere Beziehung vorhanden. Was aber die 
sonstigen Aehnlichkeiten, die von beiden Aposteln berichteten 
Damonenaustreibungen und Wunderheilungen, Geistesmittheilungen 
und Verfolgungen ‘bei Leuten, die in demselben Beruf in derselben 
Zeit bei ahnlichen Begebenheiten unter denselben Verhiltnissen 
wirken,” irgend verfangliches haben soll, das ist in der That schwer 
einzusehen’ (Dr. C. Clemen, Prolegomena zur Chronologie der Pau- 
linischen Briefe, Halle, 1892, p. 17 f.; cf also Meyer-Wendt, Ajosiel- 
gesch. p. 6 f. ed. 5; Feine, Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung d. Lukas, 
p. 214). 


328 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


aimed at the Church in Wales, or by the burning 
question of Home Rule. Happily wounds heal, and 
the moss grows over broken arch and battered wall. 

But not only was there lapse of time; there may 
have been a touch of character at work as well. We 
naturally think of the beloved physician (if as I believe 
it were really he who wrote the Acts) as an amiable 
man who would not willingly aggravate any sore. It 
is an old story that the eye sees what it brings with it 
the power of seeing. So with the most perfect good 
faith the historian may have given a less agitated 
complexion to his annals than at the time they really 
wore. We feel the change at once when we leave 
the calm and even tenor of the narrative in the Acts 
and open a page of one of St. Paul's Epistles—without 
fightings, within fears. But so it is with all history, 
especially with history in sober, temperate, unim- 
passioned hands. We may admit all that can be said 
under this head, and yet see in it nothing to arouse 
distrust or suspicion. 


I wish to take a just, not an optimist view of the 
Acts of the Apostles. I am willing to see every 
mistake, that can be proved to be a mistake, cor- 
rected!, But the sounder the critic the fewer mistakes 


1 There are some real difficulties. Of these the chief would be 
(i) the difference between the description of the speaking with tongues 
in Acts ii. 6-11 and that in 1 Cor. xiv, which it is difficult to explain 
entirely, though we remember that St. Paul recognises different kinds 
of tongues (γένη γλωσσῶν), and that some apparently are distinguish- 
able as belonging to known languages (γλῶσσαι τῶν ἀνθρώπων); 
(ii) the case of Theudas (Acts v. 36), in regard to which it seems tome 


Criticism of the Acts. 329 


he seems to find. I know nothing in German com- 
parable for thoroughness and solidity of investigation to 
the parts which concern the Acts in Professor Ramsay's 
Church tn the Roman Empire. That at least is not 
beating the air, but contributes data of real importance 
to criticism }, 

Of course it is true that the Acts is composite like 
the Gospel, and the question ultimately turns upon 
the discrimination and examination of sources. IJ have 
said that this has not led to any final result at present. 
It would be easy to put before you some of the latest 
theories*. But they all seem to be as yet in the 
tentative stage; and I do not wish to anticipate de- 


equally wrong to assume that there is a mistake and to assert confi- 
dently that there is not (on this side see especially Lightfoot, p. 40); 
(iii) the omission of the journey, Acts xi. 30, in Gal.i. 1 cannot think 
that this journey, mentioned so incidentally, is unhistorical, and prefer 
to believe that the silence of St. Paul might be explained if we knew 
the circumstances; the journey may have synchronized with the 
persecution of Herod Agrippa I, when the leading Apostles were in 
prison or in hiding; (iv) the account of the reception of St. Paul by 
the Jews at Rome (Acts xxviii. 17-28), where however the indica- 
tions which we get in Rom. xvi as to the way in which Christianity 
first established itself in Rome would be consistent with a consider- 
able degree of ignorance on the part of official Judaism. I do not 
include among the number of serious difficulties the differences 
between Acts xv and Gal. ii. They are no doubt great, but not 
I think greater than can be satisfactorily accounted for by the differ- 
ence in position between the two writers. 

1 Reference should also once more be specially made to Bishop 
Lightfoot’s articles in the Dicteonary of the Bible and the Contemporary 
Review for 1878. 

2 A comparative table of recent theories of the composition of 
Acts vi-xxviii is given by Clemen, Dre Chronologie d. paul. Briefe, 
pp. 288-291. 


330 VI. The Gospels and Acts. 


cisions about which I am myself doubtful. The Acts 
presents upon the whole an easier problem than the 
Gospel. It is at least easier in the sense of being far 
less complex. At the same time it probably requires 
for its solution a wider and more varied knowledge, 
combined with independence of judgment. I could not 
name a book which possesses these qualities in a higher 
degree than Professor Ramsay’s. Of course it touches 
only a limited section of the subject. But within that 
section its result is—what I believe would be in 
greater or less degree the result of investigations all 
along the line—to put the Acts on the same level 
with the Gospel as deriving its materials from those 
who were ‘eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, 
and as a sober unsophisticated historical record, from 
which we, as well as the generation for which it was 
first written, may ‘learn the certainty’ of the things 
wherein we have been instructed. 


LEGCRURE, Vil 


THE GENESIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
THE EPISTLES AND APOCALYPSE. 


‘And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much 
trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive 
words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the 
power of God.’—1 Corinthians ii. 3-5. 

‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the 
Churches.’— Revelation ii. 7, &c. 


Ir ever there was a manifestation of the super- 
natural, it was in the condition of things out of which 
arose the New Testament. We have only to take up 
the Epistles of St. Paul, and we find him surrounded, 
penetrated, permeated with the supernatural. It is 
as it were the very atmosphere which he breathes. 
He does not assert it. He has no need to assert it. 
Except in a few special cases there is none of that 
straining and emphasis which becomes necessary where 
a claim is made and resisted. A large proportion of 
the references to supernatural influence is indirect, 
thrown in by way of casual allusion. St. Paul assumes 
it as a fact everywhere present to the consciousness of 
his readers as much as to his own. In writing to the 


332 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


Corinthians he reminds them of the circumstances of 
his first preaching among them. The contrast could 
not be more striking. On the one hand the Apostle, 
with his weak and nervous frame shattered by illness, 
conscious of the tremendous odds against him, with 
none of the arts of the rhetorician, none of the im- 
posing phrases of the philosopher. But on the other 
hand, bursting masterfully through all obstacles, 
triumphing over every drawback, there was this ‘de- 
monstration of the Spirit’ (z.e. demonstration borne by 
the Spirit) ‘and of power.’ Certainly from the lips of 
St. Paul this was no unmeaning or conventional phrase. 
He is evidently as sure as any of the Old Testament 
prophets was ever sure that the message which he 


\delivered was no invention of his own, that it was not 


commended by ability and skill on his part, but 
that he was merely an instrument in the hand of God, 
that anything which he had to say came from God, 
and that it was God alone who gave it success. In 
that expressive figure which he uses in this same 
Epistle it was for him or for any other preacher only 
to plant and water, the seed was God’s, all its ger- 
minative and expansive power was God's, and it was 
God who caused it to strike root and grow. 

This Gospel which he was commissioned to preach, 
even if it were to some extent moulded by his own 
faculties, was not moulded by those faculties acting 
independently and spontaneously but only as the tools 
and instruments which God made use of to give in- 
telligible shape to His own creation; the Gospel thus 
given to him was a new and wonderful force in the 


Outpouring of the Spirit. 333 


world, and the community which had grown up round 
it to be its earthly vehicle and to carry it far and wide 
had also a special endowment corresponding to the 
magnitude of its task. The universal name which the 
first Christians gave to this characteristic of their own 
time was the ‘gift of the Spirit.’ They dated it from 
the first Pentecost after the Ascension. From that 
time onwards a strange exaltation and enthusiasm 
pervaded the Church. It was not confined to any one 
locality; it was not confined to any one class or order, 
not even to the Apostles; but wherever there were 
Christians St. Paul assumes that the same mighty 
movement would be at work. It would take many 
different forms; now ecstatic utterance, now heightened 
and sharpened insight, now actual miracle, especially 
miracles of healing, now gifts of judgment, discrimina- 
tion, organizing, governing. Some of these gifts if 
they occurred in our own day we should not call super- 
natural, ‘Natural’ and ‘supernatural’ are imperfect 
terms which we use to describe from the point of view 
of our human ignorance different modes, or what 
appear to us to be different modes, of the Divine 
action. The essential point is that the action is 
Divine; that whether transcending known laws or not 
transcending them, it does come direct from God. 
There can be no doubt that St. Paul regarded all the 
manifestations around him as having this origin. They 
all radiated from a single centre. And that centre 
was the Incarnation, and the forces which the Incar- 
nation had set in motion. 

The one permanent deposit left behind by this tidal 


334 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


wave of God-given energy was the New Testament. 
The kernel of the New Testament considered as such 
a deposit is the Epistles of St. Paul. The Gospels 
too are part of the deposit, but in a sense they stand 
outside it. That which they enshrine and which gives 
them their value was not a product but the cause of 
the product, the original force which gave the impulse 
to the rest. Of the Gospels we have spoken, and it 
now becomes our duty in like manner to follow the 
course of the Epistles, first in their origin and then in 
their recognition as inspired Scripture. We start, as 
it is natural to do, from the Epistles of St. Paul. 


I. It may at first sight seem a strange thing that so 
much of the New Testament should consist of Epistles. 
It is this which marks most clearly the difference 
between the New Testament and the Old.  Chris- 
tianity broke through the narrow limits of Judaism. 
lt soon began to plant its colonies throughout the 
Roman Empire; and the needs of these scattered 
societies drew from the leaders of the Church letters 
of instruction and warning which have become the 
law of Christians for all time. 

We may well think it surprising that a Sacred Book 
should be built up in a way so incidental—not to say, 
accidental—as this. The consequences are deeply 
impressed upon the character of Christian theology. 
It is due to this that the teaching of the New Testa- 
ment is so unsystematic, and in some respects so 
incomplete. But it is due to it on the other hand — 
that the same teaching is so real and so practical, in 


Origin of the Epistles. 335 


such warm and vital contact with the human heart. 
The fabric of Christian doctrine was not elaborated in 
the study, but was struck out in the ‘storm and stress’ 
of actual life. 

There was precedent in the past for conveying 
weighty religious instruction in the form of letters. 
Probably the oldest example which has come down to 
us is the letter of Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon 
(Jer. xxix). But the division of the nation into these 
two halves, one in Judaea and one in Babylonia, after 
the Restoration, and the founding of another large 
settlement in Alexandria and Egypt, caused this form 
to be adopted in more than one of the Apocryphal 
Books'. These are based, we need not doubt, upon 
real intercourse in which the several branches of 
the nation sought to strengthen and encourage each 
other in their loyalty to the faith of their fathers. 

St. Paul therefore had before him models to follow. 
He was probably not thinking of any models when he 
began to write to the young communities which he 
had founded. His solicitude for them in the dangers 
to which they were exposed, and his keen desire to 
carry them on to the highest point of Christian per- 
fection, was quite enough motive with him for writing. 
But the fact that the same literary form had been used 
for similar purposes before, probably suggested to him 
to throw into his letters such a carefully constructed 
body of teaching as is found for instance in the Epistles 
to the Romans and Ephesians. 


1 The so-called Epistles of Jeremiah and Baruch, and the Epistles 
at the beginning of 2 Maccabees, 


336 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


Observe how easy and natural the whole process is. 
When St. Paul began to write, probably neither he 
himself nor his readers attached so much importance 
to his letters as they came to do. We can clearly see 
that not a few of his early letters must have been 
lost, simply we may suppose because no special care 
was taken to preserve them. The two Epistles to 
the Thessalonians, dating about the years 52, 53, are 
the earliest extant Epistles. Yet already in 2 Thessa- 
lonians he has to take precautions against forgery and 
to remind his readers that his autograph signature is 
the sign of genuineness in ‘every Epistle’’ ‘ Avery 
Epistle’ would naturally imply that it had more than 
a single precursor. And the very idea of forgery 
shows that the correspondence must have attracted 
attention. In the next extant Epistle, the First 
to the Corinthians, there are clear indications of 
a previous letter’, now lost; and in the Second Epistle 
to the same Church, probably the fourth in date of 
those referred to in our Bibles, we have proof that 
the letters of the Apostle had acquired a high repu- 
tation and were sometimes contrasted with his personal 
infirmities *, The Epistle to the Galatians was wrung 
from him by bitter controversy, which he could not 
conduct upon the spot; but by the time he came to 
write to the Romans it is evident that the Apostle 
knew that he would be listened to, and that even a 
lengthy composition addressed to a distant Church 
of which he was not the founder would not be thrown 
away. 


Po2 ΠΕΞΒ; 111. 17 5 of. ὩΣ 2 3 Cor.va i 5. 2 Cor ΚΕ ΤΟΣ 


The Pauline Epistles. - 337 


The practice thus established St. Paul continued for 
the remainder of his life. For I must needs believe 
that all the Epistles which have come down to us as 
his are genuine. I cannot imagine that a conscientious 
opponent of these letters, who when he laid down his 
pen would turn round to look back over the argu- 
ments by which he had been led to deny their genuine- 
ness, could honestly say that they were conclusive. 
In the first place, we may put aside Philippians and 
1 Thessalonians as practically acknowledged by all 
but a few extravagant Dutch and Swiss critics who 
furnish us with nothing but an instructive warning |. 
There remain 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 
Philemon, and the Pastorals. There is however no 
tenable line between any of these. In fact nothing 
is more remarkable than the way in which each 
questioned letter is linked on to one or more that 
are unquestioned. The critic who accepts 1 Thessa- 
lonians cannot make out a good case against its 
companion Epistle. The critic who accepts Philippians 
is disarmed when he comes to attack the other Epistles 
of the Imprisonment. Most Englishmen will have a 
short and easy method for deciding the genuineness 
of Colossians; for it is inseparably bound up with 
that most winning little Epistle to Philemon, which 
only pedantry could ever think of doubting. And 
then Colossians and Ephesians are so intertwined 
that a highly artificial and laboured theory has to 


1 These have certainly received all the refutation which they need 
in Mr. Knowling’s learned and able work, Zhe Witness of the Epistles, 
Pp: 133-243. 

Z 


438 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


be invented to disunite them’. It may be mentioned 
by the way that a writer who had made a specially 
close and careful study of the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians, after beginning with the theory that it was 
interpolated, has quite recently given up that hypo- 
thesis, and now accepts the whole as genuine*, It 
is perhaps some set-off against this that a strong 
defender of the Epistle to the Colossians has now 
pronounced against Ephesians*. But in regard to 
this latter Epistle the point I think was touched by 
a remark made to me the last time we met by that 
profound Cambridge scholar who passed away at the 
end of last year, viz. that Ephesians was required to 
complete the argument of the fifteenth chapter of 
Romans. This thought he has indeed himself worked 
out in a page of the very striking sermon preached at 
the consecration of Bishop Westcott 4, the utterance of 
one who spoke but seldom, but when he did speak left 
behind matter which will well bear pondering. 

No doubt of all the disputed Epistles the strongest 
case can be made out against the Pastorals. But how 
much of this case turns simply upon our ignorance! 
And even so the negative argument seems to have 
received a severe shock from Professor Ramsay's 


* Colossians in part genuine, in part interpolated by a disciple of 
St. Paul, who also wrote Ephesians. 

* Von Soden in the Handcommentar, 

* Klépper, Der Brief an die Epheser, Gottingen, 1891. On the 
whole question of the Epistle to the Ephesians, see especially the 
excellent article by Dr, Robertson in the new edition of the Dictionary 
of the Bible. 

* The Sense and Service of Membership, &c., p. 6. 


The Pauline Eptsiles. 339 


recent investigation of the legal status and early 
persecution of Christians. It is true that the hypo- 
thesis of the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles 
requires the further hypothesis that the life of 
St. Paul was prolonged beyond the point reached 
by ther natative of (the “Actsy The Acts sitsell 
suggests as much, because if St. Paul had really met 
his tragic fate at the end of the two years of com- 
parative freedom in his own hired house it must 
surely have been noticed. The one substantial argu- 
ment was that the only known persecution about this 
date was that which followed the burning of Rome in 
64 A.D. Here Professor Ramsay comes in and proves, 
as I cannot but think decisively, that the persecution 
begun then by Nero did not really cease, or, as 
Mommsen had put it before him, ‘ The persecution of 
the Christians was a standing matter as was that of 
robbers. Christians were treated like pests of society 
which it was as much the duty of the police to put 
down as it was to suppress anything else which tended 
to the breach of decency and order. If they were left 
unmolested, it was only from indolence or connivance. 
Persecution would soon break out again all the more 
fiercely. 

The bearing of the Pastoral Epistles upon this 
question has led Professor Ramsay to examine afresh 
the question of their genuineness, and his vigorous 
judgment has decided in their favour. Another im- 
portant work which has appeared within the last few 
weeks, Godet’s Lutroduction to the Pauline Epistles, 

1 Ap. Ramsay, Zhe Church in the Roman Empire, p. 269. 
is O: 


340 VIT. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


also states the argument from a more professedly 
theological point of view, but in a very convincing 
form. 

It may be asserted without fear of contradiction 
that nothing really un-Pauline has been proved in 
any of the disputed Epistles. A development and 
progress truly there is, but not such as is incompatible 
with unity of authorship or such as may not well come 
within the range of a single life. It is true that the 
development is rapid. But the acknowledged Epistles 
taken in connexion with the dates to which they 
belong and their place in the Apostle’s career prepare 
us for rapidity of development. The writer of the 
Epistles to Corinthians, Galatians and Romans lived 
a life of extraordinary intellectual and moral intensity. 
The rate of thought-production in such a life must not 
be measured by commonplace standards. And what 
was true of the Apostle was true in a manner of the 
whole Church. It too, if we may say so, lived hard. 
Its vital energies had full play. And the spread of 
Christianity throughout the Empire brought it in 
contact with varied modes of thought, as well as with 
varied social conditions and practical necessities. 

There is one landmark which stands out quite 
independently of the Epistles of St. Paul. The 
Epistle to the Hebrews is quoted unequivocally in 
the oldest post-Apostolic writing, the letter of the 
Roman Church to the Church at Corinth which goes 
by the name of St. Clement. That proves that it 
was in use by the year 97 a.p._ But it deals with the 
spiritual condition of a community which was tempted 


The Pauline Epistles. 341 


to relapse into Judaism. The rich Mosaic system 
still exercises its attractions, to which the readers of 
the Epistle seem likely to succumb. But can we 
think of such a state of things after the crushing blow 
which Judaism received by the fall of Jerusalem and 
_the destruction of the temple? We date the Epistle 
then certainly before a.p. 97, and probably before 
a.p. 70. And-in it we have a fixed point by which 
other books of the New Testament can be gauged. 
Does not this abundantly cover any progression that 
can be traced in the writings of St. Paul, or indeed in 
any of the New Testament writings? If the Epistle 
to the Romans could be reached by the year 58 and 
the Epistle to the Hebrews some ten years later, 
there certainly is not one of the New Testament 
Books to which we can point and say, Such an 
advanced stage of either doctrine or practice at such 
a date was impossible, or even in the least degree 
improbable?. We remember that if there is develop- 
ment it is natural and logical development. There is 
no violent change, no breach of continuity. 

This holds good even of the point in which the 
difference between the earlier and later Epistles of 
St. Paul is perhaps most perceptible—the style and 
modes of expression. Here again there are a number 
of subtle links which attach the disputed Epistles to 
the undisputed. And the difference which remains 
over and above the common features and resemblances 
does not seem to be in any case greater than can 
᾿ fairly and naturally be accounted for by differences of 


1 The writer has used similar language in Laposz/or, 1892, 1. 391. 


342 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


circumstance, differences of object, differences of mood, 
and perhaps we should add the use of different amanu- 
enses. There is, it is true,a somewhat peculiar relation 
between Epistles like Colossians and Ephesians and 
some of the other Epistles. The ideas are Pauline; 
the vocabulary is Pauline: it is mainly in the cast 
and structure of the sentences that difference is per- 
ceptible. I have sometimes asked myself whether 
this may not be due to the degree of expertness 
attained by the scribe in the art of shorthand. We 
know that this art was very largely practised; and 
St. Paul’s amanuenses may have had recourse to it 
somewhat unequally. One might take down the 
Apostle’s words verbatim; then we should get a 
vivid, broken, natural style like that of Romans and 
1, 2 Corinthians. Another might not succeed in 
getting down the exact words; and then when he 
came to work up his notes into a fair copy, the 
structure of the sentences would be his own, and it 
might naturally seem more laboured. 

However this may be, even supposing that a margin 
has to be left for the operation of causes of which we 
are ignorant, I cannot think that that margin is large 
enough to interfere seriously with the conclusion to 
which the positive evidence points, that the Epistles 
which have come down to us in St. Paul’s name are, 
both in whole and part, really his. I say ‘both in whole 
and part, because unless it has documentary support 
even the hypothesis of interpolation seems to me 
inadmissible. It should be remembered that the text » 
of the New Testament is quite unique in the extent 


The Pauline Epistles. 343 


and excellence of its external attestation. Not only 
are the authorities for it (MSS., Versions, and quo- 
tations in the Fathers) earlier and more abundant 
than those for any other work in ancient literature 
(Virgil perhaps coming nearest to it), but when these 
authorities are arranged in groups and families and 
we argue from the readings dispersed throughout 
these groups to the readings of the common arche- 
type of all the extant authorities, viz. the primitive 
original from which they must all have sprung, that 
primitive original carries us back so near to the 
Apostolic age itself, that the interval within which 
interpolation could have taken place must have been 
very short—if indeed there is any such interval at all. 
The New Testament is in this respect on a wholly 
different footing from the Old Testament or from 
classical writings which depend on some few compara- 
tively recent copies; and the freedom of speculative 
reconstruction which may be permissible there is out 
of place here1. 

We take then the New Testament as it lies before 
us in a text like that of the Revised Version, or still 
better, because of its wider recognition of possible 
textual change, that of Drs. Westcott and Hort. 
Among the books are no less than thirteen which, 
although they certainly do not represent the whole of 
St. Paul’s correspondence with the Churches, yet are 
at least a very weighty selection from that corre- 
spondence. When we consider what has just been said 


1 Compare what the writer has said on a typical instance of 
supposed interpolation in Zhe Classical Review, 1890, p. 359 f. 


244 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


about the gradual way in which the correspondence 
arose and acquired its reputation, is it not natural to 
infer that the other letters which the New Testament 
contains were suggested by this example, and com- 
posed upon this model? This would not indeed be 
the case if we could accept the date (40-50 a.p.) 
assigned to the Epistle of St. James by Dr. J. B. 
Mayor’. Dr. Mayor's edition of this Epistle is a 
monument of. scholarship, a fruit of that alliance 
between classical studies and theology which it is to 
be hoped may long be characteristic of our English 
Universities. But on this point of the date of the 
Epistle of St. James I cannot think that Dr. Mayor is 
right. His view, which it is only fair to say is shared 
by a number of eminent writers—Neander, Ritschl, 
Weiss, Beyschlag, Mangold, Lechler, Paul Ewald— 
assumes that the writing of doctrinal Epistles would 
come to the first generation of Christians as a matter 
of course. To this I cannot agree. It seems to me to 
be a fact which needs to be accounted for. It can be 
accounted for easily and naturally if we believe that 
the practice began with St. Paul. The missionary 
Apostle went from city to city, founding Churches. He 
was sure to communicate with these Churches by 
letter. And we can see how his letters would grow 
from simple greetings and exhortations to elaborate 
theological treatises. —Then when once the example had 
been set with such striking results it is easy to under- 
stand how the other Apostles would follow. But it is 
not so easy to believe that it was they who set the 
* Epistle of St. James, Ὁ. cxxiv. 


The Catholic Epistles. 345 


example, and that the Epistle of St. James was written 
before any extant Epistle of St. Paul’s or even before 
he returned from his first missionary journey. 

The character of the Epistle itself seems to me 
decidedly against this. It implies too settled a con- 
dition of things. It is too little concerned with laying 
foundations. The distinctive doctrines of Christianity 
are presupposed. For this reason it would seem that 
the Epistle should be put as late as it can be put. 
Its relation to the Epistle to the Romans I would 
explain as not so much direct as indirect. Much of 
the resemblance in subject between the two Epistles 
I believe to be due, as Bishop Lightfoot held, to their 
dealing with questions current in the Jewish Schools. 
But besides this, it is probable that St. James was 
influenced not by the actual text of an Epistle like 
that to the Romans, which I do not think that he 
had seen, but by hearsay reports of what St. Paul was 
teaching. If we suppose direct polemics between the 
two Apostles, then both seem strangely to miss the 
mark, Each would be arguing against something 
which the other did not hold. It seems more true to 
the situation to regard St. James as with a proper 
modesty not imputing to his brother Apostle erroneous 
teaching which he had not sufficient evidence to bring 
home to him, but taking a firm stand against dangers 
to which teaching such as that attributed to St. Paul 
seemed liable. 

Dr. Mayor has done good service by the effective 
way in which he has disposed of the attacks upon the 
genuineness of the Epistle. The most significant proof 


346 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


that it really belongs to the Apostolic age is the 
description of the Church as a ‘synagogue’ in which 
it is assumed that all the members are not Christians. 
Such mixed communities, in which believing and un- 
believing Jews worshipped side by side, are not likely 
to have existed after the Fall of Jerusalem, when 
the breach between Jew and Christian became irre- 
parable. 

The question as to the genuineness of the First 
Epistle of St. Peter has entered upon a new phase 
with the researches of Professor Ramsay. But on this. 
I do not think that we have as yet heard quite the 
last word. In any case, Professor Ramsay has done 
more to determine the position of things implied in the 
Epistle than had ever been done before. He has. 
made it impossible to argue, as many critics had done, 
that it must date from the time of Trajan. But I am 
expressing elsewhere! my reasons for dissenting from 
the view that it falls under the Flavian dynasty about 
the year 80 a.p. The question is too long and too 
technical to be argued here, and the conclusion would 
be only one-sided. I do not doubt that an under- 
standing may soon be arrived at now that the question 
has been placed upon such healthy lines and brought 
to so near an issue 3. 

No doubt the most crucial case for the validity of 
the New Testament Canon is that which is raised 
by the Second Epistle of St. Peter. With respect to 


1 Expositor, June 1893, p. 411 f. 
2 See Additional Note A: A New Theory as to the Origin of the 
Catholic Epistles. 


The Catholic Epistles. 347 


this I hope to be forgiven if I return to my personal 
recollections of perhaps the greatest critic whom our 
Church has produced. I put the question to him about 
a year ago what he thought of this Epistle. He 
replied that if he were asked he should say that the 
balance of argument was against the Epistle—and the 
moment he had done so that he should begin to think 
that he might be wrong. 

This is of course very different from the way in 
which critics of less scrupulous conscience dismiss the 
whole question as if it were not really arguable. I had 
myself not long before expressed in print a some- 
what similar opinion’, at least to the extent that the 
arguments commonly brought against the genuineness 
of the Epistle did not seem to me quite decisive. But 
here again a new element has been introduced within 
the last few months by the discovery, not of the Gospel, 
but of part of the so-called Apocalypse of Peter. It 
has been pointed out? that this presents many marked 
resemblances of style to the second Epistle. The 
resemblances are so marked as I think to prove that 
the two writings are nearly connected. But the 
question is, what is the nature of the connexion ? 
It is no doubt possible that the writer of the Apoca- 
lypse may have imitated the Epistle or that both 
may be affected by some common influence. If there 
had been on the whole better reason than not for 
believing the Epistle to be the genuine work of 
St. Peter, it would be natural to fall back upon 


1 The Oracles of God (London, 1891), p. 73 n. 
2 E.g. by Mr. M. R. James, Zhe Revelation of Peter, p. 52 f. 


348 VIT. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


some such assumption. But as the balance of 
argument is really the other way', the question is 
forced upon us whether it is not on the whole more 
probable that the two writings are both by the same 
hand. This is at least the simplest of the different 
hypotheses which are open to us. 

We must then, I think, distinctly contemplate the 
possibility, if not the probability, that we have in the 
New Testament a book which is not by the writer 
whose name it bears. What this would mean is that 
the New Testament is not upon a different footing 
to the Old; that there would be a real parallel to 
a case like that of Ecclesiastes, in which a book has 
found its way into the Canon under an assumed 
name. 

There is indeed nothing new in the situation thus 
defined. The Epistle is not mentioned at all until the 
beginning of the third century, and as soon as it 15 
mentioned it is also doubted. Many Syriac-speaking 
Christians were without it until far on into the Middle 
Ages. The Sixth Article of our own Church gives 
no list of the Books of the New Testament, and ap- 
parently draws a distinction between those Canonical 
Books which have been doubted and those which 
have not. For some time past there has been a 
sort of tacit consent, wherever criticism is admitted, 
to use the Second Epistle of St. Peter with a certain 
reserve. 


1 See Additional Note B: Zhe Genuineness of 2 St. Peter. 
* See pp. 26, 382; also Salmon, Jz/roduction, pp. 485-490, 
ed. 5. 


Inspiration of the Epistles. 349 


I am not one of those who would depreciate the 
contents of the Epistle. In spite of its strained and 
turgid style it is written in a good spirit, in close 
contact with the currents of genuine inspiration; and 
more of the Epistle than we perhaps suppose has 
passed into the household speech of Christians. If 
the Epistle is not genuine, the writer would not 
mean any great harm when he took upon himself to 
write in the name of St. Peter. He would be like 
that Asian presbyter who confessed to the author- 
ship of the Acts of Paul and Thecla and said that he 
had done it ‘from love for Paul!” We remember 
that even then the presbyter in question upon his 
confession was degraded from his office. But now 
a still stricter view prevails, and to many modern 
readers the critical doubtfulness of the Epistle, com- 
bined with its claim to speak with the authority of 
St. Peter, is a more serious stumbling-block. 

From the point of view of our present subject it 
will be chiefly important as showing that the boundary 
line of the New Testament, like that of the Old, 
perhaps has not been drawn with absolute accuracy. 
If we take our New Testament as a whole we may 
well believe that a Divine Providence has watched 
over it. It is a wonder that in such an age so little 
that is in any sense unworthy has found its way into it. 
But in this, as in other things, the Providence of God 
does not absolutely exclude the infirmities of men. In 
the best-tilled field other growths will come up beside 
those which the husbandman planted. All of these 


1 Tertullian, De Bap. 17. 


350 VIT. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


will not be noxious; some may be useful enough in 
their place. And although that place may not be 
where they are found, it would not be wise to attempt 
to remove them, lest peradventure the wheat should 
be uprooted with them. 

In all parts of our subject alike the same phe- 
nomenon meets us—here a blaze of light, the central 
orb shining in its strength, there a corona of rays 
gradually fading away and melting into the darkness. 
It is thus, not only with the limits of the Canon of the 
Epistles, but also with their inspiration, St. Paul, as 
has been said, does not go out of his way to claim 
inspiration. It seems to be almost an accident that 
he says anything about it at all. And yet it is im- 
possible to read the first few chapters of the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians or the first chapter of the 
Epistle to the Galatians without feeling that his own 
inspiration is an axiom of his thought, and not only an 
axiom of his own thought, but that the inspiration of 
himself and others is an axiom in the thought of 
Christians generally, 

It is the Epistle to the Galatians which takes us 
back to the origin of the gift. We seem to be reading 
a description of the call of one of the prophets of the 
Old Testament. ‘For I make known to you, brethren, 
as touching the Gospel that was preached by me, that 
it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from 
man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through 
revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my 
manner of life in time past in the Jews’ religion, how 
that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, 


Inspiration of the Epistles. 351 


and made havock of it: and I advanced in the Jews’ 
religion (14. Judaism, ᾿Ιουδαϊσμῷ) beyond many of mine 
own age among my countrymen, being more exceed- 
ingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But 
when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated 
me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me 
through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that 
I might preach Him among the Gentiles; immediately 
I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went 
I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before 
me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I re- 
turned unto Damascus’ (Gal. 1, 11-17). So great 
a crisis was not one for human intervention. The 
soul must wrestle out its own problems between itself 
and God. 

What could be more explicit than this? If we may 
follow the consciousness of the Apostle, there cannot 
be the slightest doubt as to its testimony. And it 
is impossible not to notice the depth and largeness 
of the view which he takes. He seems to see the 
counsel of God fixed long before he was born and 
taking effect in spite of his own errant will as soon 
as the appointed moment was come. This counsel 
does not concern himself alone, but has to do with the 
opening of a new page in the great design. He 
himself is a mere instrument for the preaching of the 
Gospel among the Gentiles. So the old Particularism 
was to be broken down and the glad tidings were to 
be carried forth into all the world. The Apostle 
speaks with a certain awed but absolutely unshaken 
sense of the part which he was called upon to play in 


352 VIT. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


this vast making of history. The root of it all is that 
‘Gospel of Jesus Christ’ so wonderfully revealed in 
his heart—‘in me’ is his phrase, ‘in’ and filling his 
consciousness, so that no other motive-power was left 
there. 

Nor is it to be supposed that this was only an 
initial impetus, amplified to the imagination by that 
tension of soul in which the Apostle took up the pen 
to write to his recreant converts in Galatia. We turn 
to the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians. There 
again we have that loftiness of view which cannot help 
regarding the circumstances of the moment as part of 
the great stream—the Gulf Stream, we might call it— 
of events by which Christianity was introduced among 
the chilled waters of Paganism. How mean and in- 
significant were the instruments which God had chosen 
for such a mighty purpose! They were not scholars, 
not philosophers, not orators, or statesmen! Yet their 
preaching had a wonderful effect ; and the contrast of 
this effect with the inadequacy of the cause was just to 
prove that it was really the work of God. 

For, after all, though what had been offered to the 
Corinthians was not a philosophy in the common sense 
of the word, though it made none of those dazzling 
appeals to the intellect which philosophies usually 
made, it was not on that account without a deep and 
hidden wisdom. There was concealed within it a 
wisdom which was not human but Divine. This wisdom 
was derived from none other than the Holy Spirit, 
who being conversant with the deep things of God 
Himself was able also to communicate them to men. 


Inspiration of the Epistles. 353 


‘ 


‘Which things also, the Apostle continues, ‘we 
speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, 
but which the Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual 
tunes? with spiritual’ (τ Cor: i. 137). This»is the 
normal habitual level of inspiration. It is more sus- 
tained than the inspiration of the prophets in the Old 
Testament; it extends not merely to single truths 
revealed for a special object, but to a body of connected 
truths, a system of theology. 

For this reason it would seem as if the inspiration 


of the Epistles had more direct relation to the written | 
word than the inspiration of the Old Testament. No | 


doubt the ‘demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ 
was primarily concerned with oral delivery. But the 
impulse came from the body of truth which lay behind, 
of which the spoken and written word were only 
alternating modes of expression. The inspiration of 
the New Testament was more that oftan indwelling 
abiding Spirit than that of the Old?. It was one form 
of that great outpouring which flooded not an indi- 
vidual here and there but the whole society. 

There were doubtless many in the Apostolic age 
who were qualified to write inspired books. The 
prophets of the New Dispensation must have had a 
gift similar in kind to that vouchsafed to the prophets 


1 Compare 1 Thess. ii. 13: ἐδέξασθε οὐ λόγον ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ (καθώς 
ἐστιν ἀληθῶς) λόγον Θεοῦ, ὃς καὶ ἐνεργεῖται ἐν ὑμῖν πιστεύουσιν. 

2 So Novatian, De Trin. 29: Unus ergo et idem Spiritus, qui 
in Prophets et Apostolis ; nist quoniam 1b¢ ad momentum, heic semper. 
Ceterum ibt non ut semper 171 illis tnesset: heic, ut in τὴς semper 
maneret: ef tb¢ mediocriter distributus, hetc totus effusus : τόν parce datus, 
heic large commodatus. Compare Tertullian, De Lxhort. Cast. 4 ad fin. 


Aa 


354 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


of the Old. As a matter of fact this gift does run 
over into the next age; there are traces of it in the 
writings of the Apostolic Fathers’. But above the 
prophets and above the more ordinary manifestations 
of the Spirit there was a yet higher grade of authority, 
that of Apostles. And it is the works of these 
Apostles which have come down to us and constitute 
this part of our Bibles. 

There are many interesting indications of the more 
sustained character of the Apostolic inspiration. One 
would be the use every now and then by St. Paul 
of such phrases as ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω 2, 
When the Apostle throws in apologetically that he is 
speaking ‘after the manner of men; he is clearly con- 
descending from his usual level. He is meeting carnal 
persons with carnal weapons. It is the opposite of 
‘comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” In one 
place St. Paul appeals to those who have an inspira- 
tion to some extent like his own. ‘If any man thinketh 
himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him take know- 
ledge of the things which I write unto you, that they 
are the commandment of the Lord’ (1 Cor. xiv. 37). 
St. Paul is conscious of speaking really from the mind 
of Christ and with the authority of Christ. Those 
who have themselves the true gift of the Spirit he is 
sure will at once recognise this. And as to the rest, 
they must be left in their blindness, 

And yet with all this impressive Divine background 


" See Additional Note C: Zhe Claim to Inspiration in certain 
passages of the Apostolic Fathers. 
* Rom, vi 19; 1 Cor. ix, 8) Gal. i, BR 


Inspiration of the Epistles. 355 


there is also a strong human element in the Epistles 
of St. Paul. Not that Divine and human are really 
separable, except as an abstraction of thought. They 
are not otherwise separable’. The Divine acts through 
the human. The psychological processes through 
which it acts remain unaltered. They bear the stamp 
of an individual mind, subject to certain conditions of 
place and time, of race and circumstances, but with 
the strongly marked lineaments of the man super- 
added to them. The theology of St. Paul is a 
reasoned system. In spite of its fragmentary presenta- 
tion to us, one part here and another part there, 
pushed to the surface by the stress Οἱ temporary and 
passing needs, behind these occasional utterances there 
lies what is really a system, marvellously knit and 
compacted together, a structure of closely articulated 
thought. I do not mean that it is a system without 
gaps—gaps in the mind of the Apostle, as well as in 
the way in which it has found expression in his extant 
writings. There were some things which even an 
Apostle could only ‘know in part.’ But there were 
no essential points in the principles of Christian belief 
and practice on which St. Paul was not prepared to 
give a judgment; and the various judgments which he 
has given hang together, so that in many cases we 
can see how they were reached. The centre of 
St. Paul’s creed was the simple belief that Jesus 


1 «The human and the divine are held together in an union which 
is organic and unanalyzable. They have not been mixed together, 
they have grown together.’ (Rev. J. G. Richardson, quoted by Cheyne, 
Aids to Devout Study, p. 150.) 


Aa2 


356 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


was the Messiah and Son of God. Given that, and 
the rest followed in due sequence, with only such 
additional assumptions as must have been made at 
the time by a pious Jew. 

It was natural that some of the reasoning which 
had this Jewish ‘character imprinted upon it, should 
not be according to our modern standards strictly 
valid reasoning. Some examples of this have been 
given in an earlier lecture. I do not think it can 
be said that the Rabbinical methods which St. Paul 
does employ from time to time really affect the 
essence of his teaching. His main propositions are 
arrived at independently of the formal proof which 
he alleges for them. Indeed it is often in the strict 
sense not meant as proof at all, but something between 
what we should call proof and illustration. Thus in 
that string of passages, culled from various contexts, 
some of them originally of far more limited application, 
by which in Romans iii. St. Paul supports his thesis of 
universal wickedness, he is doing little more than 
connect with the language of Scripture a proposition 
which really rested on the evidence of his own eyes 
and ears. Still in the logical sense the argument is 
defective. 

And as there are defects of logic, so also there are 
defects of temper. It ill becomes one who has nothing 
to try him as St. Paul was tried to speak of these. 
Rather may he wonder how in the midst of pressure 
and distraction which might well tax the nerve and 
shake the balance of the strongest and most im- 
passive, this most sensitively organized of men com- 


Inspiration of the Epistles. 357 


bines firmness with conciliation, never yielding a 
point of principle, and yet meeting his refractory 
converts with such infinite tact and resource, such 
delicate courtesy and consideration, as to carry out 
his purpose with the smallest possible amount of 
friction. This lies upon the surface and is in fact 
the characteristic note of St. Paul’s Epistles. And 
yet the strain is too great sometimes. The Epistle 
to the Galatians begins with rebukes which if severe 
are dignified, but towards the end the tone becomes 
less patient. As far back as the time of St. Jerome 
it was observed that the outbreak against the circum- 
cision-party in Gal. v. 12 could not have been written 
under the immediate influence of the Spirit. St. Paul 
soon shakes off this, and draws that beautiful picture 
of what the fruit of the Spirit should be (Gal. v. 22, 
23); but what he had just written rather reminds us 
of his fiery answer to the injustice of the high priest 
at his hearing before the Sanhedrin (Acts xxiii. 3). 
From Tertullian onwards it has been pointed out 
that St. Paul is conscious of degrees in his own inspira- 
tion!. Sometimes he knows that it is not he who 
speaks but Christ who speaks in him®, At other 
times he speaks somewhat less confidently. After 
expressing an opinion of his own on the greater 
blessedness of the single life, he adds, ‘and I think 
that I also have the Spirit of God*’ He would not 


1 See Additional Note D : Larly Patristic Comments upon 1 Cor. vit. 
ΓῸ 12, 25, 10. 

7 1 Cor. xiv. 37 (uf sup.); 2 Cor. xiii. 3, 11: 10. 

For Cor, yiiy 40. 


358 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


speak quite in this way if a direct revelation had been 
vouchsafed to him on the particular point. Still he 
believes that the judgment he has given is connected 
with other judgments in which he has a real inspira- 
tion. Sometimes he will not claim as much as this. 
A little earlier in the same chapter he says expressly 
that concerning virgins he has no commandment of 
the Lord, but gives his judgment like a good and loyal 
Christiant. And again he says plainly and without 
qualification, ‘ To the rest say I, not the Lord *. 

We must take the facts as we find them, and give 
them the best name we can. At one end of the scale 
there is a strong unhesitating conviction of an impulse 
and guiding, nay of actual possession, from above. At 
the other end of the scale this conviction shades off 
into more ordinary conditions. That the conviction 
itself is real and no delusion, is confirmed by the 
power with which the products of the state of mind 
to which it relates still come home to us. We do 
right to call that state of mind ‘Inspiration,’ But 
in so calling it we must leave a place for the other 
phenomena as well. 

If St. Paul had not had his authority resisted, we 
should have heard little or nothing about his inspira- 
tion. As it is, however much it is implied, the 
direct allusions to it are few and far between. The 
other Apostles met with no resistance, and therefore 
they have still less occasion to assert what no one 
questioned. At the same time it is impossible to read 
their Epistles without feeling that there is in them a 


22 Cor. vii. 25. ® bid, ver. 12. 


Early History of the Epistles. 359 


πληροφορία or fulness of assurance quite as great as with 
St. Paul. They expect to be obeyed; and even when 
they speak of mysteries, they expect to be believed. 
‘Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who 
are sojourners of the Dispersion’; ‘James, a servant 
(δοῦλος) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 
twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion’; ‘Jude, 
a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James!’ 
The modest self-suppression of the last two titles does 
not imply any weakness in the position of the writers. 
Their readers know who they are too well to need 
credentials. But most impressive of all is the opening 
of the First Epistle—the only public Epistle —of 
St. John: ‘That which was from the beginning, that 
which we have heard, that which we have seen with 
our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled, 
concerning the Word of life. . . declare we unto you.’ 
It is as if the Apostle came fresh from the presence of 
the Incarnate Word with plenipotentiary powers to 
announce the way of holiness and salvation to men. 
As compared with St. Paul the other Apostles place 
themselves less upon the same level with their readers. 
They teach, they command, they warn, they exhort ; 
but there is less of argument and expostulation. 
Yet they make the same general postulate as St. Paul, 
that outpouring of the Spirit of which the Apostolic 
letters are a conspicuous product. 


And now we have to trace the process by which 
this body. of letters, St. Pauls Epistles’ and the 


tr ΒΟ. 1. 1; James i. τ; jade: 


360 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


Catholic Epistles, took their place in the New 
Testament as sacred writings. Weighty as St. Paul's 
Epistles were, they were not composed in the first 
instance for such a place. When he sat down for 
instance to write his first extant Epistle to the 
Thessalonians, his only thought was one of mingled 
joy and anxiety over the newly founded Church. We 
may be sure that it never occurred to him that this 
letter of his to his converts would be written, as he 
himself described the histories of the Old Testament, 
‘for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages 
are come.’ By what steps did the Epistles come to 
assume this new character ? 

One of the most important of these steps was 
public reading before the assembled Church. This 
first Epistle contains a strong injunction that it is to 
be read ‘to all the brethren.’ It was addressed in 
the first instance to certain leading individuals in the 
Church—not to call them by too formal a name—and 
they were to see that every one was made acquainted 
with its contents. It sometimes happened that an 
Epistle would be read to other Churches besides that 
to which it was addressed. Thus the Colossians are 
charged to send for a letter addressed to Laodicea, 
and they in turn are to send on their own letter to the 
Laodiceans; and the exchanged letters are each to be 
read in the neighbouring Church. This passing about 
from Church to Church would naturally help the idea 
that the Epistles possessed a general and permanent 


1 1 Thess. v. 27: ‘I adjure you by the Lord that this epistle be 
read unto all the brethren.’ 


Early History of the Eptstles. 361 


value. And the stress which St. Paul lays upon the 
public reading of his Epistles would suggest that the 
reading should be repeated. It was not long before 
the Apostolic letters began to be treasured in the 
archives of the Church, in the same chest or cupboard 
we may suppose with the copies of the Old Testament ; 
and they would be brought out and read on special 
occasions, at first somewhat irregularly, but after a 
time in a certain order and system. It is of course 
very much a matter of accident when we first have 
positive evidence for the custom. We meet with this 
in Tertullian’. But a full generation before Tertullian 
we learn from Dionysius of Corinth that the Corinthian 
Church had kept up the primitive custom of having 
the letter written to it by Clement in the name of the 
Church of Rome? read at the Sunday services*. We 
may argue from this @ /ortzorz to the letters of 
Apostles. Indeed it would seem as if any weighty 
letter from a leader of the Church or from one of the 


v 


ticae litterae recitantur. 


1 De Praescr. 36: apud quas (sc. ecclesias apostolicas) tpsae authen- 


2 Eus. 27. £. vi. 23. 11: Ἔν αὐτῇ δὲ ταύτῃ καὶ τῆς Κλήμεντος πρὸς 
Κορινθίους μέμνηται ἐπιστολῆς δηλῶν ἀνέκαθεν ἐξ ἀρχαίου ἔθους ἐπὶ τῆς 
ἐκκλησίας τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν αὐτῆς ποιεῖσθαι. Λέγει γοῦν. Τὴν σήμερον οὖν 
κυριακὴν ἁγίαν ἡμέραν διηγάγομεν, ἐν ἣἧ ἀνέγνωμεν ὑμῶν τὴν ἐπιστολήν, ἣν 
ἕξομεν ἀεί ποτε ἀναγινώσκοντες νουθετεῖσθαι, ὡς καὶ τὴν προτέραν ἡμῖν διὰ 
Κλήμεντος γραφεῖσαν. 

3. The express mention of Sunday seems to negative the distinction 
which Weiss would draw: ‘Es handelt sich also um eine gelegent- 
liche Lesung solcher Gemeindebriefe, die mit der gottesdienstlichen 
Lesung heiliger Schriften gar nicht zu vergleichen ist’ (Zvn/. p. 53). 
Weiss seems to me to understate the whole case as to the authoritative 
use of the Epistles. 


362 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


greater Churches must have been made to serve the 
purpose of edification almost without a break from 
the time when it was first received. 

The desire for edification goes back to the outskirts 
of the Apostolic age itself, and it can be satisfied by 
others besides Apostles. The remembrance is still 
fresh in men’s minds of the time when the prophetic 
gift was widely diffused, and a ‘word of exhortation’ 
was easily obtained. ‘These things, brethren,’ says 
St. Polycarp, ‘I write unto you concerning righteous- 
ness, not because I laid this charge upon myself, but 
because ye invited me.’ But it is noticeable that 
Polycarp goes on to deprecate the distinction thus 
bestowed upon him, and to refer the Philippians rather 
to the letter (or letters ?) which had been left them by 
the blessed and glorious Paul, who according to the 
wisdom given to him had taught the men of his day 
‘the word which concerneth truth carefully and surely’ 
—significant language as to the esteem in which the 
Epistles were held and as to the way in which they 
were beginning to be marked off from other writings— 
even of one so famous as Polycarp. Ignatius just 
before had in like manner deprecated comparison 
between himself and the Apostles. ‘I do not enjoin 
you, he had said to the Romazs, ‘as Peter and Paul 
did. They were Apostles, I am a convict; they were 
free, but I am a slave to this very hour ®.’ 

There is another point of interest in Polycarp’s 
letter. It shows what active communication went on 


1 Polyc. ad Phil. iii. 2 (tr. Lightfoot). 
2 Ign. ad Rom. iv. 3. 


Early History of the Epistles. 363 


between the Churches at this date, and how eagerly 
the letters of distinguished men were sought after and 
cherished—the echo doubtless still reverberating of 
the effect produced by the Apostolic correspondence 
in the previous century. ‘ Ye wrote to me, Polycarp 
says, ‘both ye yourselves and Ignatius, asking that 
if any one should go to Syria he might carry thither 
the letters from you. And this I will do, if I get a fit 
opportunity, either I myself, or he whom I shall send 
to be ambassador on your behalf also. The letters of 
Ignatius which were sent to us by him, and others as 
many as we had by us, we sent unto you, according 
as ye gave charge; the which are subjoined to this 
letter; from which ye will be able to gain great 
advantage. For they comprise faith and endurance 
and every kind of edification, which pertaineth unto 
our Lord’? 

The Philippians had asked for, and Polycarp sends, 
a collection as complete as he could make it of the 
letters of Ignatius. The idea of a collection it will be 
observed is ‘in the air. We note further that in his 
short Epistle of something under six octavo pages 
Polycarp quotes from or alludes to no less than nine 
out of thirteen of St. Paul’s Epistles, including of the ° 
disputed Epistles, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and 
1,2 Timothy. The letters of Ignatius in like manner 
contain clear indications of six Epistles, among which 
are I Timothy and Titus. It seems natural to infer 
with Holtzmann’, a very unprejudiced judge, that 
Ignatius and Polycarp both had in their possession 


Lolve. σῷ Pal. xii. 1,25 ? Einleitung, p. 102, ed. 3. 


364 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


the full collection of the Pauline Epistles’. This 
would be probably before the year 117 a.p2 We 
remember also that a little later, about 140 A.D., 
Marcion had a collection of ten Epistles, to which he 
refused to add the Pastorals. It would seem to be 
not quite certain, but on the whole probable, that 
Marcion knew and deliberately rejected these Epistles 
on the obvious ground that they were private letters, 
addressed to individuals and not to Churches*. Ter- 
tullian accuses him of inconsistency in rejecting them 
but accepting the Epistle to Philemon. It is remark- 
able that the external evidence for the Pastoral Epistles 
should be so good and so early as it is; because, apart 
from the question which seems to have been raised 
and debated during the second century whether letters 
to individuals could rightly have Canonical value 
assigned to them‘, it would be only natural to suppose 


1 Weiss goes so far as to say that the existence of a collection 
of Pauline Epistles before Marcion ‘entbehrt jedes geschichtlichen 
Grundes’ (£vn/. p. 63 n.). Surely the arguments in the text afford a 
good presumption of it. Holtzmann is here the better critic. 

2 It is true that Holtzmann describes the Ignatian Epistles as 
dating ‘at the latest’ from 170 to 180 a.p. Most Englishmen consider 
_ that Bishop Lightfoot has proved their genuineness. Granting this, 
they must be at least earlier than the death of Polycarp in 156. 
Harnack’s theory as to the list of the bishops of Antioch, though he 
still assumes it, has really broken down (Lightfoot, Jgnafius, ii. 
452 ff.). 

* So Zahn, Gesch. d. K. i. 634 f. 

* This is denied by Kuhn, Aur. Fragm. p. 80. Zahn contends 
with some reason (i. 267 f.) that the question might be raised and 
discussed as a matter of speculation without anywhere leading to the 
actual rejection of the letters. There is no proof of such rejection 
except by Marcion and some other Gnostics (reff. in Zahn, i. 266 n.). 


οι 


Early History of the Epistles. 36 


that such letters would be later in getting into circu- 
lation than letters addressed to Churches and read in 
the public services. Their inclusion in the collection 
which was known both to Polycarp and to Ignatius 
must have gone far to secure their position. 

Can we go back further than Ignatius and Polycarp 
for proof of the existence of a definite collection of 
Pauline Epistles?? Zahn thinks that we can ; he would 
trace the use of the collection to Clement of Rome, but 
on grounds which seem to me of doubtful cogency. We 
must be content with the inference that the collection 
is older than the end of the reign of Trajan (117 4.D.): 
how much older, we cannot say. From the many 
traces of this one collection of thirteen letters, and 
from the complete absence of any like traces of smaller 
or divergent collections, we may justly conclude that 
the collection was made by one person at a definite 
time, and that it rapidly spread over the whole of 
Christendom. 

It is more a matter of speculation where it was 
made. There seem to have been two competing lists 
of the order of St. Paul’s Epistles. One, as old as 
Origen, has the letters arranged substantially as at 
present, the principle being doubtless to place them 
in the order of their length and importance. Other 
lists agree in putting the Epistles to the Corinthians 
first and that to the Romans last. It is argued that 
these represent the primitive collection, which on that 
ground is supposed to have been made at Corinth. 
The strength of the argument depends upon details ; 

1 Gesch. ὦ. K.i. 811 ff. 


366 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


and it may retain its interest, without being exactly 
convincing ". 

In regard to the nature of the authority attaching 
to the Epistles, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
from the time of Irenaeus onwards they were treated 
as on the same footing with the Old Testament. 
This may be maintained for the East as well as for 
the West”. But to say that the Epistles are upon the 
same footing with the Old Testament is only a different 
way of describing an authority which they were felt to 
possess all along. We have seen with what respect 
Ignatius and Polycarp speak of the Apostolic letters. 
It is true that they do not use technical language; the 
idea present to their minds may have been rather 
vague; but there can have been no generation, from 
the first onwards, in which the Apostles did not carry 
special weight. Their written word would count for 
just as much as their spoken word. Among strictly 
Christian documents there can have been none so 
authoritative, except those which contained the ‘Words 
of the Lord.” At first letters from other leaders of 
the Church might be treasured up beside them. But 
when at last the Church came consciously and de- 
liberately to take the teaching of the Apostles for 
its standard, these would one by one be excluded. 

The acknowledged Catholic Epistles, 1 St. Peter, 
1 St. John, and in a less degree St. James, were 
quoted in precisely the same way as the Epistles of 
St. Paul, and no tenable distinction can be drawn 


1 See especially Zahn, Gesch. d. K. i. 835 ff. 
* See above, pp. 20 f., 67 ff. 


Early History of the Ειϑδίίο5. 367 


between them. The comparative slowness with which 
the other Epistles took their place has about it nothing 
surprising. There was not here the safeguard of a 
collection. Single Epistles, sent out to somewhat 
vague addresses, and received at a time when there 
was no difference between the written word of an 
Apostle and his spoken word; received at a time 
when every Church had its prophets, and was fre- 
quently visited by wandering Apostles and Evangelists, 
who besides their own words of exhortation and en- 
couragement, would no doubt often bring messages or 
repeat what they had heard from members of the 
original Twelve, or the Seventy, or from the great 
Apostle of the Gentiles; received at a time, further, 
when the end of all things seemed at hand, and when 
the present was so full of intense and thrilling interest 
that men might be forgiven for losing sight of the 
future; single Epistles, we cannot but feel, received 
under circumstances such as these, even though it 
were from Apostles, needed something of a special 
Providence to secure their preservation at all. And 
when we think also of the fragile material (papyrus) 
on which they would be written, of the very disturbed 
times in which their recipients found themselves, and 
of the imperfect organization which in those early 
days must have connected the scattered Churches 
with each other; when we think of all this, our 
wonder is increased, not that they should have been 
somewhat slow in coming into general use and that 
their use should at first have been local and partial, 
but that so much of this literature should have been 


368 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


saved from destruction, and that it should have been 
brought together as completely as it has. Everything 
would depend on those first fifty years which are so 
dark to us. An Epistle lodged in the archives of a 
great and cultured Church like the Church of Rome 
would be one thing, and an Epistle straying about 
among the smaller communities of Bithynia or Pontus 
would be another; while an Epistle written to an 
individual like the Gaius of 3 St. John would have 
worse chances still. There were busy, careless, 
neglectful and unmethodical people in those days as 
well as now; and we can easily imagine one of these 
precious rolls found with glad surprise, covered with 
dust in some forgotten hiding-place, and brought out 
to the view of a generation which had learnt to be 
more careful of its treasures. But even then, once off 
the main roads, circulation was not rapid; an obscure 
provincial Church might take some time in making 
its voice heard; and the authorities at headquarters 
might receive the reported discovery with suspicion. 
They might, or they might not, as it happened. 
There would be few copyists available in a remote 
district !, and there would be much delay and perhaps 
some flagging of enthusiasm, before any number of 
copies got into use. They would be welcomed here, 
suspected there; and so would grow up just such a 


1 St. Basil and his brother Gregory Nyssen complain of the difficulty 
of finding trained copyists in Cappadocia. Cf. Basil, Zp. cxxxv. jin. 
(Migne, P. G. xxxii. 573); Greg. Nyss. Zp. xii. (Zacagni, Collect. 
Mon. Vet. p. 382) πένητες of Καππάδοκες ἡμεῖς, πλέον δὲ πάντων πένητες τῶν 


γράφειν δυναμένων : Wattenbach, Schrifiwesen im Mittelaller, p. 267 f. 


Origin of the Apocalypse. 36y 


condition of things as our fragmentary records reveal 
tous. By degrees the usage of the different Churches 
was equalized. The smaller Churches one by one 
followed the example of the larger. The great leaders 
on the orthodox side in the fourth century compared 
notes together. And so, more by a sort of tacit 
consent than by public argument and discussion, there 
was gradually formed our present New Testament 
Canon. 


II. Among the disputed books in this.Canon was 
the Apocalypse. It was disputed not so much from 
doubts as to its authorship as from objections to 
its doctrine or to the inferences drawn from it. It is 
true that it was assigned to other authors than the 
Apostle—the Alogi assigned it to Cerinthus, Diony- 
sius of Alexandria to John the Presbyter—but the 
motive was dislike of the book more or less freely 
acknowledged, and the critical difficulties which Diony- 
sius raised, although skilfully conceived, were a second 
thought and had no historical tradition behind them. 

The criticism of the Apocalypse, like that of the 
Synoptic Gospels and the Acts, is at the present 
moment in an interesting stage, but cannot be said 
to have reached finality’, Some twenty years ago 
there was nearly an agreement among the leading 
European scholars, including our own most trusted 


? A scholarly account of the present position of the question is 
given by Prof. Milligan in his Descusstons on the Apocalypse, London, 
1893. But I regret to find myself often forming a different estimate 
of the value of an argument, especially in chap. iii. 


Bb 


310 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


Biblical theologians, Bishops Lightfoot and Westcott, 
that the Apocalypse was all the work of one hand, 
and that its date was shortly before the Fall of Jeru- 
salem, about the year 69 A.D. 

Within the last decade both these questions have 
been re-opened. Bishop Butler held that there were 
discoveries still to be made in the Scriptures by closer 
attention. And it is certainly the case that very many 
theories which seem to have the mass of the facts in 
their favour have yet some awkward little difficulty 
lurking away in the corner, which when it is brought 
to the front may throw out the balance of the whole. 

Such a disturbance of almost accepted theories 
occurred when in 1886 Harnack and his pupil Vischer 
put forward the view that the Apocalypse could not 
be satisfactorily explained as a work of wholly Christian 
origin. Its mixed character had already given some 
trouble to commentators. One feature here seemed 
to imply an advanced Christian Universalism ; another 
feature there seemed to breathe the narrower aspira- 
tions of Judaism. Hitherto the solution offered had 
been to describe the author as a Jewish Christian. 
But what if there were really two authors? What if 
the Judaism all came from one, the author of an 
original Apocalypse soon after the death of Nero, and 
the Christianity were added to this by the other, who 
worked over the older piece and issued it with a new 
face under Domitian ? 

There was at least one prima facie argument which 
lent a certain attractiveness to this view besides the 
main grounds on which it had been propounded. This 


Origin of the Apocalypse. 371 


was that by giving to the book a double authorship 
it was possible also to give it a double date. There 
had been always this drawback to the Neronian theory, 
that Irenaeus, a pupil of Polycarp, who was himself 
a pupil of St. John, said expressly that the vision of 
the Apocalypse had been seen at the end of the reign 
of Domitian! (c. 95 a.p.). Surely it would not be 
easy to have better evidence. For other points con- 
nected with the Apocalypse, Irenaeus appealed to those 
who had had actual personal contact with the Apostle. 
Why should not they be also his authorities here ? 

But then there were the many marks which seemed 
to require an earlier date, between the death of Nero 
and the Fall of Jerusalem. It was an obvious ad- 
vantage of the Vischer-Harnack hypothesis that at one 
stroke it satisfied both these sets of conditions, by 
placing the original work under Nero and its revised 
and Christianized edition under Domitian. 

The hypothesis when it was first started fell in with 
the tendencies of the time, and not only attracted 
considerable attention but made a certain number of 
converts. Now however a reaction seems to have set 
in. After all, the supposed dualism of the Apocalypse 
has an artificial look. The more it is examined the 
more it is felt that the Apocalypse will not really bear 
to be dismembered. The very peculiar style with its 
strange eccentricities of grammar runs through the 
whole; the historical situation implied in the parts 
supposed to be added is the same with that in those 
supposed to be original; and there are many other 

1 Adv. Haer on. 30. 3. 
Bb2 


312 VII. The Episties and Apocalypse. 


cross-references from the one to the other. Besides, 
there are serious difficulties in the way of regarding 
the ground-stock of the book as Jewish. It is true 
that there was war between the Romans and Jews, 
but war is not persecution; and the Jews could never 
have been persecuted like the martyrs of the Apoca- 
lypse*. They were protected by laws which the 
Romans appear to have respected under great provo- 
cation to throw them over. We may ask, too, who 
were the prophets who play so prominent a part in 
the book? We hear little of prophets among the 
Jews at this period, while the Christian Church was 
full of them. 

I think then that we may safely dismiss this idea of 
a Jewish base and Christianized redaction, as raising 
worse difficulties than it removes. It is indeed in 
many respects in direct contradiction to the facts. 

There remains therefore the old question of date. 
And here again we may note a reaction. The tradi- 
tional assignment of the Apocalypse to the reign of 
Domitian has been of late strongly reinforced. Last 
and most important of all, it has received the adhesion 
of Professor Ramsay, who has pronounced decidedly 
for it in his work on Zhe Church in the Roman 
Enipire (p. 3201). 

Yet Professor Ramsay’s investigations, valuable as 
they are, have appeared too recently to command 
assent before they have been tested. I myself must 
confess to doubts as to the main premiss on which 
his argument in this particular case depends, and 

1 Cf. Ramsay, Zhe Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 268, 301. 


Origin of the Apocalypse. 373 


I am expressing my reason for these doubts elsewhere. 
If I do so it is only for the sake of truth and with 
every willingness to be convinced that the doubts are 
unfounded. I am prepared to admit beforehand that 
strong reasons may be alleged for the later date under 
Domitian. It increases the difficulties arising out of 
the relation of the Apocalypse to the Fourth Gospel. 
But those difficulties must not be allowed to stand in 
the way if direct and positive evidence leads to the 
conclusion which entails them. My hesitation is chiefly 
due to the fact that the arguments which induced so 
many excellent critics to prefer the earlier date are still 
unanswered'. If one group of phenomena points one 
way, other groups point another. Apart from details, 
I question if any other date fits in so well with the 
conditions implied in the Apocalypse as that between 
the death of Nero and the destruction of Jerusalem 
by Titus. On all hands there are wars and rumours of 
wars. There are the revolts of Vindex and Civilis in 
Gaul; the successive rise and fall of Galba and Otho; 
the hosts of Vitellius mustering for the final shock 
with the armies of the East under Vespasian; the 
dreaded Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and the 
rumour that the tyrant Nero was not really dead but 
had gone to join them; the horizon full of all these 
rumours of titanic conflict, and then at the point which 
for a Jew was still the centre of all, the legions of 


* They are very clearly stated by Archdeacon Farrar in Zarly 
Days of Christianity, ii. 179-322. Among the supporters of the 
early date must be numbered both Bishop Lightfoot (Galatians, p. 343) 
and Bishop Westcott (Gospel of St. John, p. \xxxvi f.). 


314 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


Titus drawing closer round Jerusalem and the fated 
city already enveloped in the horrors of the siege. It 
might well seem as if this crash of empires was a fit 
prelude to the crash of a world. Never was the 
expectation of the approaching end so keen; never 
were men’s minds so highly strung. If this were the 
moment when St. John was exiled from a great mart 
of commerce like Ephesus, to which news would come 
pouring in from every quarter of the Empire, we could 
well understand the tension of mind to which every 
page of the Apocalypse bears witness. There were 
no such tremendous issues, no such clash of opposing 
forces, no such intense expectation of the end under 
Domitian. The background seems inadequate. 

How grandly over all echoes the voice which 
borrows its tones straight from the prophets of the 
Older Covenant: ‘ Righteous art Thou, which art and 
which wast, Thou Holy One, because Thou didst 
thus judge... . Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true 
and righteous are Thy judgments?’ Whenever it 
is, Christians are being persecuted ; the Empire is 
making its hand heavy upon them; they are as 
incapable of offering resistance as a child. And yet 
the prophet’s gaze hardly seems to dwell upon the 
sufferings of himself and his people. They are a 
school of steadfastness and courage. ‘ Be thou 
faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown of 
life, is the chief moral to be drawn from them. But 
the prophet looks away beyond the persecution to the 
fate of the persecutors. ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon 


" Rev. xvi. 5, 7- 


Inspiration of the Apocalypse. 375 


the great. ... Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the 
strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come ἦν 
Rome did not fall quite so suddenly or so soon as the 
prophet expected; but the principle which underlies 
his words is true, that nations like individuals are 
absolutely in the hand of God, and that He will 
punish them for their misdeeds. Small, insignificant, 
helpless as it seemed, the Christian Church has 
outlived pagan Rome. 

Properly to understand and appreciate the Apo- 
calypse we must think of it just as we think of the 
prophecies of the Old Testament. It differs only in 
this, that it takes the special form of ‘ Apocalyptic’; | 
it is concerned with the ‘last things.’ The author 
repeatedly describes himself as a prophet and his book 
as a prophecy* He also repeatedly speaks of being 
‘in the Spirit ®. The words which he addresses to the 
Churches are as if they were spoken by the Spirit +. 
Indeed there is no writer in the New Testament 
who makes such explicit claim to inspiration. The 
strongest language which is found in the older 
Scriptures he uses and applies to his own book. He 
makes the highest authority asseverate its truth, and 
he invokes blessings upon those who observe it: 
‘And He said unto me, These words are faithful and 
true: and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the 
prophets, sent His angel to show unto His servants 


1 Rev. xviii. 2, 10. 

5. Ἴδη 1 3-5 Xs ΤΕῸΝ ΣΧ Ο, ἢ; Ὁ. 18; 19: 

ΞΡ 1 2. 1 VO >, ἵν: Xvi SY ELS 10: 

S20 1ἰ. ἢ, τα τῇ; 50; {π|- 6, 15. 22.) ΟἿ KV 3s ΧΧΙΙ 1ἢ: 


376 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


the things which must shortly come to pass. And 
behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth 
the words of the prophecy of this book!’ And the 
concluding words are obviously modelled upon passages 
which we have noticed in Deuteronomy and Proverbs ?: 
‘I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the 
prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto 
them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are 
written in this book : and if any man shall take away 
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God 
shall take away his part from the tree of life, and 
out of the holy city, which are written in this book. 
He which testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come 
quickly ὁ, | 

It may be asked how this emphatic language can be 
reconciled with the fact that the main expectation of 
the prophet, that of the near approach of the Second 
Coming, has not been fulfilled. We may say that 
from the very first it was doomed to non-fulfilment. 
If the hour of His own Second Coming was not revealed 
to the Son Himself, far less could it be revealed to one 
of His servants. ‘This was one of those things which 
the Father hath kept in His own power. 

No doubt the Christians of the Apostolic age did 
live in immediate expectation of the Second Coming, 
and that expectation culminated at the crisis in which 
the Apocalypse was written. In the Apocalypse, as 
in every predictive prophecy, there is a double element, 

1 Rev. xxii. 6, 7. 


? Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32; Prov. xxx. 6; cf p. 267 sup. 
5. Rev. xxii. 18-20. 


Inspiration of the Apocalypse. Bye 


one part derived from the circumstances of the present 
and another pointing forwards to the future. It was 
the present which suggested to the mind of the Seer 
all that grandiose imagery, ultimately based upon the 
Book of Daniel, of the beast with the seven heads, of 
which five had fallen, and one though wounded to 
death was to recover from his wound’, It was 
the horrible present, the idolatrous worship of the 
Emperors, which had its headquarters in Pergamum 
‘where Satan’s throne is2, which is reflected in the 
worship of the beast and his image *. From the present 
are drawn those pictures of the great river Euphrates 
with myriads of horsemen marshalled along its banks 
and its waters dried up for the kings of the East to 
pass over‘. From the present too we get looming in 
the background that mighty Babylon, imperial Rome, 
drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs, of which 
the fall is to usher in the end®. The present runs 
into the immediate future when the prophet sees the 
temple with all but its innermost shrine given up to 
the Gentiles, and the holy city trodden underfoot by 
them; and it is in the same near future that he looks 
for the great and final outburst of wickedness and the 
short-lived triumph of the beast and of the false prophet, 
collective names for the powers in which it is embodied. 

All these things, in an exact and literal sense, have 
fallen through with the postponement of that great 
event in which they centre. From the first they were 


Εν: xi: 1 3. 12; ΣΙ TOs 2 Lbid. ii. 13. 
Si 71: Sail. 45°94, τὸ: ΣΙ. Ὁ. ΠΩΣ ΟἹ. τὸ; Xvi. 12. 
5. Jbid. SVU. 3..4.; ἈΨΠῚ 2S 24: 


318 VII. The Epistles and Apocalypse. 


but meant as the imaginative pictorial and symbolical 
clothing of that event. What measure of real fulfil- 
ment the Apocalypse may yet be destined to receive 
we cannot tell. But in predictive prophecy, even when 
most closely verified, the essence lies less in the 
prediction as such than in the eternal laws of moral 
and religious truth which the fact predicted reveals or 
exemplifies. We can seldom see the whole of these 
laws until it is possible to place prophecy and fulfilment 
side by side. But we shall hardly be far wrong if we 
take as the central feature of the Apocalypse its 
intense longing for the Advent of Christ and His 
Kingdom, with its confident assertion of the ultimate 
victory of good over evil and of the dawning of a state 
of blissful perfection when Sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away. 


Notes to Lecture VII. 379 


NODE +A, 
A new Theory of the Origin of the Catholic Epistles. 


WHEN the discovery of the Dzdaché threw a new and 
unexpected light upon the activity of the prophets and διδάσ- 
καλὸς and showed what an important part they had played 
along with the Apostles (in the wider and narrower sense) in 
the history of the Primitive Church, the idea occurred to 
Harnack that in this direction was to be sought the solution 
of the problem as to the origin of the so-called Catholic 
Epistles. Starting from the assumption that they could not 
be the work of the authors whose names they traditionally 
bear, and yet not seeing in them the marks of deliberate 
fiction, he hit upon the theory that they were originally the 
work of nameless prophets or teachers, which in the course 
of the second century, as the tendency grew to refer all the 
institutions of the Primitive Church to the Apostles, had the 
names of Apostles attached to them. This he believed was 
done in the case of the Epistles of St. James, St. Jude, and 
1 St. Peter by interpolations in the opening words of address. 
In proof of the possibility of this, appeal was made to the 
textual phenomena of the end of the Gospels of St. Mark, 
St. Luke, and St. John, of the end of the Epistle to the 
Romans, and the beginning of the Epistle to the Ephesians. 
Overbeck’s theory as to the Epistle to the Hebrews was 
referred to, and a like hypothesis was suggested for the 
Apocalypse and 1 Tim. vi. 17-21. Cases were also quoted 
such as that of the Epistle of Barnabas and the attempt to 


380 Notes to Lecture VII. 


bring writers like Clement of Rome and Hermas into con- 
nexion with the Apostles. 

The value of the theory must depend upon the strength of 
the objections to the traditional ascriptions. In case these 
should give way the hypothesis of anonymous authorship is 
certainly preferable to that of fiction. But the really valid 
support for the interpolation-theory shrinks into very small 
compass indeed. 

The instances which rest upon pure conjecture may be left 
to themselves. I do not believe that they have any sort of 
probability. [As to Hebrews see p. 24 f. above; the ascription 
of the Apocalypse to St. John is guaranteed as early as 
Justin; the theory that 1 Tim. vi. 17-21 is interpolated is 
entirely ‘in the air’ and no reasons are alleged for it.] On 
the other hand, those which have some documentary basis are 
really wide of the mark, and present no parallel ‘to the 
hypothesis which they are adduced to prove. The evidence 
against St. John xxi. 25 has been proved by Dr. Gwynn (in 
the current number of Hermathena) to be practically nil. 
The words which drop out of St. Luke xxiv. 53 (if these are 
what Harnack means, but there is nothing which really serves 
his purpose) are just a common case of conflation which has 
nothing to do with ascription of authorship. The same is true 
of the last twelve verses of St. Mark. The most probable 
view, I think, is that they were written to make good a loss 
through the frayed end of a roll. But in neither of its forms 
does the supplied ending even hint at the name of an author. 
If there is any tendency in the variants of Romans and 
Ephesians (Rom. i. 7,15; Eph. i. 1) it is rather to make the 
address of the Epistles vaguer and not more definite ; and the 
readings at the end of Romans (xiv. 23, xvi. 20, 24, 25-27) 
may affect the form in which the Epistle circulated, but do 
not affect its authorship. 

The examples thus adduced really tell against and not for 
the thesis which they are called in to support. They show 
how sensitive the documentary evidence is to early changes 
of any kind, and they raise a presumption that if the text had 


Note A. 381 


been tampered with as Harnack supposes, traces of the fact 
would have been somewhere forthcoming. 

Again, when we look at the history of the Catholic Epistles 
we see that interpolation was quite unnecessary. The Epistles 
of St. John were accepted as Apostolic without any name in 
their salutations at all. 

If the object were to impress by the weight of authority 
it is strange that the interpolator should have been so modest 
in his procedure—that the author of the Epistle which bears 
the name of St. James should be called simply ‘a servant of 
Jesus Christ’ without any personal identification, and that 
the interpolator who inserted the name of Jude should only 
describe him as ‘ brother of James.’ 

But indeed we have nothing in any of our authorities to 
make it likely that an ordinary prophet or teacher, however 
general his commission, would have taken upon himself to 
write in so commanding a strain to such widely scattered 
communities as the ‘twelve tribes of the dispersion,’ or ‘ the 
dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.’ 
Of course the data are defective. But whereas we have 
analogies for Apostles taking so large a sweep of the horizon, 
we have no analogies for lesser persons doing so. 

Lastly, the number of Epistles which are supposed to have 
been interpolated in this manner is really reduced to three, 
ot, James, 1 St. Peter, and St. Jude., As to 2 St. Peter, there 
can be no doubt that the whole Epistle was written in the 
Ramen ot jot.) Peter, irom) the, -first.. ) But 1 St. Peter) also 
contains a number of personal greetings (i Peter v. 12-14) 
which show that it was written by some one very high up in 
the ranks of the Church—by some one who calls St. Mark 
his ‘son’ and who makes use of Silas as a scribe. Or is all 
this too interpolation? And did the interpolator insert ἡ ἐν 
Βαβυλῶνι συνεκλεκτή ? 

There is therefore extremely little positive foundation for 
a theory which however possesses a certain interest, and is 
at least an improvement on the forms of negation hitherto 
current. 


382 Notes to Lecture VII. 


Harnack expounded his theory in a long note in his edition 


of the Didaché, p. τοῦ ff., and in Dogmengeschichte, i. 311 f., 
ed. 2. 


NOTE VE: 
On the Genuineness of 2 St. Peter. 


THE arguments commonly adduced in disproof of the 
genuineness of 2 St. Peter are as follows :— 

(1) That the external evidence is insufficient—I think 
we may consider that the clear evidence begins with Origen, 
who, however, also mentions that the Epistle was doubted. 
I cannot be sure that it was really commented upon by 
Clement of Alexandria. And the instances of the use of 
the Epistle by writers earlier than this date may perhaps 
rather be explained as coming from the common stock of 
Christian ideas and language and not specially from the 
Epistle. We should thus have a state of things which, 
though no doubt compatible with the spuriousness of the 
Epistle, by no means amounts to proof of it. The delay in 
the acceptance of the Epistle might well be due to other 
causes than defective credentials: see p. 367 f. above. 

(2) That 2 St. Peter is based upon and borrows freely from 
the Epistle of St. Jude.—It has been contended with almost 
equal zeal that 2 St. Peter borrows from St. Jude and vice 
versa. The balance of authority, and perhaps it may be 
thought the balance of argument, is in favour of the priority 
of St. Jude, but in view more particularly of the elaborate 
work of Spitta mentioned below, I should not like to assert it 
too positively. Questions of this kind are hard to bring to 
a decision. But in fact either case, that 2 St. Peter borrows 
from St. Jude, or St. Jude from 2 St. Peter, would not exclude 
the Apostolic authorship of both Epistles. We must not 


throw back the literary habits of our own day to that of the 
Apostles. 


Note 8. 383 


(3) That the author of the Epistle borrowed not only from 
St. Jude but from the Antiquities of Josephus and the Epistle 
of Clement of Rome.—This would really be fatal. But the 
case does not seem to be made out. Again, as with the 
external evidence to the Epistle, the resemblances seem to be 
due rather to a common intellectual atmosphere than to 
direct borrowing. 

(4) That, apart from this, the style is too forced and arti- 
ficial to be worthy of an Apostle-——The facts have been 
somewhat exaggerated; but what there is of truth in them 
has too many parallels in the literature of the time to be at 
all decisive. 

(5) That the author shows a too manifest anxiety to have 
his work attributed to St. Peter.—The question would be 
whether this anxiety was so great as to be suspicious. Perhaps 
it is slightly so. But there is no reason why St. Peter should 
avoid allusions to his own career. And a personator of 
St. Peter might easily have made his allusions in a cruder 
form than those in the Epistle. 

(6) That the differences of style between 1 and 2 St. Peter 
prove that the two Epistles cannot have had the same author. 
—Resemblances also have been noticed, but on the whole 
differences preponderate. Spitta boldly turns them against 
the First Epistle, which he thinks was written by Silvanus 
(cf. 1 Pet. v. 12). And we cannot wholly put aside the 
hypothesis of St. Jerome (Denigue et duae epistolae quae 
Seruntur Petri stilo inter se et charactere discrepant, structura- 
gue verborum. Lx quo intelligimus, pro necessitate rerum, 
diversis eum usum interpretibus). This hypothesis, however, 
does not seem to work out so well as in the case of St. Paul 
(see p. 342 above). 

(7) That there are differences of idea between the two 
Epistles which are still more important.—Of these the most 
considerable is in regard to the expectation of the Second 
Coming. 1 Peter regards this as near at hand (1 Pet. iv. 7, 
17, v. 1); in 2 Peter iii. 4, 8-10 there are apologies for its 
long delay. The language which is here used does not seem 


384 Notes to Lecture VII. 


to suit any part of the Apostolic age before the year 70. And 
even if we could, with Professor Ramsay and some others, 
prolong St. Peter’s life beyond that date, we should still have 
to place the two Epistles near together at the end of it. 

(8) That the well-known verses 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16 imply 
a collection of St. Paul's Epistles which is already treated 
as Scripture.—This I confess is the impression which the 
passage makes upon me, though Spitta protests energetically 
against it (‘Von einer Sammlung paulinischer Briefe, von der 
uns erhaltenen Sammlung, von dieser Sammlung als einer 
kanonischen ist 2 Peter iii. 15 absolut gar nichts zu lesen, 
Ρ. 527). 

The arguments thus enumerated vary in strength. Some 
which are weak in themselves gain somewhat by combination. 
And the last two seem to me to be of considerable force. 
The natural inference from them seems to be that the Epistle 
belongs to an age later than that of the Apostles. 

And then, to crown all, there are the coincidences of style 
with the Apocalypse of Peter. It may be true that these are 
not enough to prove identity of authorship: still they are 
favourable to it. 

On the other hand, I confess that if we can get over the 
presumption in favour of the priority of St. Jude, Spitta has 
proposed a historical situation which would suit the two 
Epistles very well. He thinks that 2 St. Peter was written 
by the Apostle shortly before his death, and that the Epistle 
of St. Jude was written after that event to the same readers 
with the object of carrying out the intention expressed in 
2 Pet. i. 15; and also that Jude 17, 18 refers back directly 
to 2 Pet. iii. 3. This last point is not a new one; but if it 
were not for the difficulties which it involves, it would be 
really attractive. While it is difficult to resist a total im- 
pression which is against the genuineness of the Epistle, 
every prima facie view is not necessarily the true one; and 
if the writer of this were to commit himself definitely to 
the negative conclusion he would feel that he was leaving 
behind arguments on the other side which he had not fully 


Note B. 385 


answered, and combinations which he could not say were 
impossible. 

Among recent discussions of the subject in English the 
following would be the most noteworthy: Dr. Lumby in 7%e 
Speaker's Commentary (in favour of the genuineness and 
priority of 2 St. Peter); Dr. Edwin A. Abbott in The Ex- 
positor, 1882, i. 49 ff.,. 139 ff., 204 ff. (strongly against both 
genuineness and priority); Dr. B.B. Warfield in The Southern 
Presbyterian Review (U.S.A.), 1882, p. 45 ff., 1883, p. 390 ff. 
(the first article a very able defence of the Epistle, the second 
in reply to Dr. Abbott); Archdeacon Farrar in The Expositor, 
1882, i. 401 ff., also Early Days of Christianity, i. 174-208 (in 
part accepting but also considerably qualifying Dr. Abbott’s 
arguments, and summing up against the genuineness of the 
Epistle, but not certainly or decisively); Dr. Salmon, Liztro- 
duction to the N. T., 5th ed., 1891, pp. 481-508 (a judicial 
and thorough examination of the arguments on both sides, 
especially controverting the arguments of Dr. Abbott); Dr. 
Plummer, in Comm. for Eng. Readers and in The Expositor's 
Bible (St. James and St. Jude), pp. 391-400 (in the earlier 
work inclining to affirm the genuineness and priority of 2 St. 
Peter, in the later work more doubtful). 

Of recent foreign works, Holtzmann, Linlettung in d. N. T., 
1892, ed. 3, and von Soden in the Handcommentar, pronounce 
decidedly against the Epistle; Weiss, Einleitung, 1886, is 
doubtful; Spitta, Der zwette Brief d. Petrus und der Bricf 
ad. Fudas, 1885, warmly and in close detail defends both the 
genuineness and priority of 2 St. Peter. Spitta is not at all 
an apologist, and in this as in his other works iresh and 
original points which fully demand attention are found side 
by side with others which are quite untenable. 


386 Notes to Lecture VII. 


WOLE ὩΣ 


The Claim to Inspiration in certain passages of the 
Apostolic Fathers. 


BOTH in the Epistle written by Clement in the name of 
the Church at Rome and in the Epistles of Ignatius there 
are passages which seem to make a claim to inspiration. 

CLEM. ROM. ad Cor. lix. 1: Ἐὰν δέ tives ἀπειθήσωσιν τοῖς 
tm’ αὐτοῦ [sc. τοῦ Θεοῦ] δι᾿ ἡμῶν εἰρημένοις, γινωσκέτωσαν ὅτι 
παραπτώσει καὶ κινδύνῳ οὐ μικρῷ ἑαυτοὺς ἐνδήσουσιν K.T. A. 

Ibid. \xiii. 2: Χαρὰν γὰρ καὶ ἀγαλλίασιν ἡμῖν παρέξετε, ἐὰν 
ὑπήκοοι γενόμενοι τοῖς ὑφ’ ἡμῶν γεγραμμένοις διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύ- 
ματος, ἐκκόψητε τὴν ἀθέμιτον τοῦ GjAovs ὑμῶν ὀργὴν κατὰ τὴν 
ἔντευξιν ἣν ἐποιησάμεθα περὶ εἰρήνης καὶ ὁμονοίας ἐν τῇδε τῇ 
ἐπιστολῇ. 

IGNAT. ad Philadelph. vii. τ: Ei γὰρ καὶ κατὰ σάρκα μέ τινες 
ἠθέλησαν πλανῆσαι, ἀλλὰ τὸ Πνεῦμα οὐ πλανᾶται, ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ov" 
οἷδεν γὰρ πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει, καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχει" 
ἐκραύγασα μεταξὺ ὦν, ἐλάλουν μεγάλῃ φωνῇ, Θεοῦ φωνῇ" To 
ἐπισκόπῳ προσέχετε καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ καὶ διακόνοις. 

These passages naturally recall those which were quoted in 
a previous lecture from Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. They 
represent the same sort of survival or overflow of the con- 
sciousness which is so strong in the authors of the Canonical 
Books of both Testaments. This is the less surprising in the 
case of the New Testament because there can be no doubt 
that the order of prophets went on for some little time after 
the close of the Apostolic Age strictly so called. Ignatius 
evidently felt himself to have spoken under an access of 
prophetic inspiration, of which he retains the remembrance in 
writing. The words of Clement are perhaps dictated rather 
by the strong assurance that he is applying inspired and 
scriptural principles to the particular case before him. 


Note D. 387 


NOSE 19: 
Early Patristic Comments on 1 Cor. vit. 10, 12, 25, 40. 


IRENAEUS. The first Christian writer to comment on the 
places in 1 Cor. vii in which St. Paul seems to draw a dis- 
tinction between the different degrees of authority with which 
he writes or speaks is Irenaeus. He makes use of the passages 
in question to show that in this respect the New Testament 
is on the same footing as the Old, and that St. Paul on the 
one hand and Moses on the other gave some commands which 
were not of absolute but relative validity for the ‘ hardness of 
heart’ of those to whom they were given. After quoting 
Matt. xix. 7, 8, he goes on :— 

‘Et quid dicimus de veteri Testamento haec? quando- 
quidem et in novo apostoli hoc idem facientes inveniuntur 
propter praedictam caussam, statim dicente Paulo: πες 
autent ego dico, non Dominus. Et iterum: Hoc autem dico 
secundum indulgentiam, non secundum pracceplum. Et iterum: 
De virginibus autem praecepium Domini non habeo ; consilium 
autem do, tanguam misericordiam consecutus a Domino, ut 
jidelis sim’ (Adv. Haer. iv. 15. 2). 

TERTULLIAN evidently finds the chapter one of consider- 
able difficulty. It appears to conflict with his views on the 
subject of second marriage. Accordingly he draws a broad 
distinction between the different ways in which the Apostle 
speaks: the laxer precepts he sets down to human prudence, 
the stricter to Divine inspiration :— 

‘Ceterum de secundo matrimonio scimus plane apostolum 
pronuntiasse: Solutus es ab uxore, ne quaesieris uxorem, sed 
etst duxeris non delingues. Proinde tamen et huius sermonis 
ordinem de consilio suo, non de divino praecepto introducit. 
Multum autem interest inter Dei praeceptum et consilium 
hominis.. Praecepium Dei, inquit, nox habeo, sed consilinim do, 
quasi misericordiam consccutus fidclis esse, quoniam neque in 

Gre 2 


388 Notes to Lecture VII. 


evangelio neque in ipsius Pauli epistolis ex praecepto Dei in- 
venias permissam matrimonii separationem. ... Sed ecce rursus 
mulierem defuncto marito dicit nubere posse, si cui velit, 
tantum in domino. <A?¢ enim felicior erit, inquit, sz sec perse- 
veravertt secundum meum consilium. Puto autem, et ego Det 
spirttum habeo. Videmus duo consilia, quo supra nubendi 
veniam facit, et quo postmodum continentiam nubendi docet. 
Cui, ergo, inquis assentabimus? Inspice et lege. Cum veniam 
facit, hominis prudentis consilium allegat, cum continentiam 
indicit, Spiritus Sancti consilium affirmat. Sequere admo- 
nitionem cui divinitas patrocinatur’ (De Lxhort. Cast. 4). 
Then follows a passage, referred to above (p. 354), on the 
fuller indwelling of the Spirit vouchsafed to the Apostles 
as compared with others of the faithful. 

The treatise De JJonogamia contains expressions much to 
the same effect and not less explicit :— 

‘Denique conversus ad alteram speciem dicendo; Wzpfitis 
autem denuntio, non ego sed Dominus, ostendit illa quae 
supra dixerat non dominicae auctoritatis fuisse sed humanae 
aestimationis. At ubi ad continentiam reflectit animos, Volo 
autem vos sic esse omnes, Puto autem, inquit, e¢ ego spiritune 
Dei habeo, ut si quid indulserat ex necessitate, id Spiritus 
Sancti auctoritate revocaret’ (De Monog. 3 ; comp. 11). 

ORIGEN in his keen way propounds as a problem for con- 
sideration whether when St. Paul says πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος 
καὶ ὠφέλιμος, he includes his own writings and in particular 
κἀγὼ λέγω καὶ οὐχ ὁ Κύριος and other passages written by him 
with authority but not in the pure quintessence of Divine 
inspiration (τὸ εἰλικρινὲς τῶν ἐκ θείας ἐπιπνοίας λόγων). This is 
in the course of a discussion as to how far the Gospels can be 
rightly described as the ‘ first-fruits’ of the New Testament. 
He decides that they can be so described though there is 
a sense in which the Acts and Epistles are all ‘ Gospel’ 
(Comm. in Ev. Fo. i. 5; ed. Lommatzsch, i. 11 ff.) 

The strongest expressions of Origen’s are found in a frag- 
ment preserved in Cramer’s Catena: οἱ νόμοι of κατὰ Μωσέα (sic), 
οἱ μὲν Θεοῦ εἰσιν, of δὲ Μωσέως" καὶ τοῦτο ἐπιστάμενος ὁ Κύριος 


Note 2). 389 


διαφορὰν νόμων Θεοῦ καὶ νόμου Μωσέως, εἶπεν ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν ὑπὸ 
Θεοῦ νενομοθετημένων᾽' ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς εἶπεν, “ τίμα [τίνα Cram.] 
τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα" ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ὑπὸ Μωσέως, ‘ Μωῦσῆς 
διὰ τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν ἐπέτρεψεν ὑμῖν ἀπολῦσαι τὰς γυναῖκας ᾿ 
.. + Μωῦσῆς μὲν οὖν ὑπηρετῶν Θεῷ, νόμους ἔδωκεν δευτέρους παρὰ 
τοὺς νόμους τοῦ Θεοῦ. Παῦλος δὲ ὑπηρετῶν τῷ Εὐαγγελίῳ, νόμους 
ἔδωκεν δευτέρους τοῖς ἐκκλησιαστικοῖς μετὰ τοὺς νόμους τοὺς [τοῖς 
Cram.] ἀπὸ [Cram., ἀτὲρ Cod.] Θεοῦ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Καὶ 
καλόν ἐστιν ἀκούειν νόμου ἀπὸ Κυρίου, ἢ ἀκούειν νόμων Παύλου 
τοῦ ᾿Αποστόλου: Kav γὰρ ἅγιος ἢ, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ ὑποδεεστέρους 
[Cram., ὑπὸ δὲ ἑτέρους Cod.] ἔχει νόμους τῶν νόμων τοῦ Κυρίου 
(Catena ad 1 Cor. vii. 12). 

Again later :— 

Τῶν ἐντολῶν ai μὲν εἰσὶν ἐπιτεταγμέναι, αἱ δὲ οὐκ ἐπιτεταγμέναι, 
ἀλλ᾽ αὐτεξούσιοι καὶ τῇ προαιρέσει ἐπιτετραμμέναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ" 
ai μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ὧν οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ σωθῆναι, αὐταὶ εἰσὶν ai προσ- 
τεταγμέναι: αἱ δὲ μείζονες τῶν προστεταγμένων, ἃς κἂν μὴ ποι- 
ἥσωμεν, σωζόμεθα, οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐπίταγμα τοῦ Θεοῦ... . διὰ τοῦτο λέγει 
6 ᾿Απόστολος, “περὶ δὲ τῶν παρθένων ἐπιταγὴν Κυρίου οὐκ ἔχω" 
γνώμην δὲ δίδωμι, ὡς ἠλεημένος ὑπὸ Κυρίου πιστὸς εἶναι. ἐν γὰρ 
τῷ λέγειν τοῖς μαθηταῖς τὸν Κύριον, ‘od πάντες χωροῦσι τὸν λόγον 
ἀλλ᾽ οἷς δέδοται, καὶ ἐπιφέρει “ὁ δυνάμενος χωρεῖν, χωρείτω,᾽ 
οὐκ ἐπέταξεν ἀλλ᾽ αὐτεξούσιον εἴασεν" “γνώμην᾽ οὖν φησὶν ὃ 
᾿Απόστολος " δίδωμι καὶ ἵνα παραστήσῃ ὅτι Κύριος ἐν αὐτῷ λέγει, 
εἶπεν, ‘ ὡς ἠλεημένος ὑπὸ Κυρίου πιστὸς εἶναι᾽ (zbéd. ad ver. 25). 

The idea of one set of precepts as of universal obligation, 
and others as forming a sort of counsel of perfection, occurs 
elsewhere with reference to this passage: e.g. Comm. in Ep. 
ad Rom. iii. 3, x. 14 (Lomm. vi. 181, vii. 423). In several 
places Origen appeals to 1 Cor. vii. 40 in proof of St. Paul’s 
inspiration: e.g. Comm. in Ev. Fo. xiii. 52, in Ep. ad Rom. i. 8 
(Lomm. ii. 107, vi. 32). 

CHRYSOSTOM, like Origen, distinguishes the two classes of 
commands, but he follows the second passage quoted from the 
Catena rather than the first in claiming that those which are 
spoken by the Apostle on his own authority are nevertheless 
inspired. His comment on ver. 10 is as follows :-— 

Ἔπειδὴ νόμον ῥητῶς ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τεθέντα ἀναγινώσκειν 


390 Notes to Lecture VII, 


, . fol \ , Ν, 2 ’ “ Ν πὰ 
μέλλει περὶ τοῦ χωρὶς πορνείας μὴ ἀφιέναι γυναῖκα, διὰ τοῦτό 
φησιν, “οὐκ ἐγώ Τὰ μὲν γὰρ εἰρημένα ἔμπροσθεν, εἰ καὶ μὴ 
ῥητῶς εἴρητο, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτῷ δοκεῖ ταῦτα τοῦτο μέντοι καὶ ῥητῶς 

,ὔ σ Ν ει ,? \ ς ᾽ 3 2 4 ν ‘ 
παρέδωκεν. “ὥστε τὸ “ἐγώ, καὶ “οὐκ ἐγώ, ταύτην ἔχει τὴν 
σ Ἂς Ν x > fal 7 ,ὔ > la Ν 
διαφοράν. “Iva γὰρ μηδὲ τὰ αὐτοῦ ἀνθρώπινα εἶναι νομίσῃς διὰ 
τοῦτο ἐπήγαγε᾽' “ Δοκῶ yap κἀγὼ πνεῦμα Θεοῦ ἔχειν᾽ (Hom. xix. 
i EDT ad Cor), 

These may be taken as specimens of early Patristic com- 
ments upon the chapter. On the whole they seem to follow 
the lines of natural exegesis. 


LECLURE, ViM: 


RETROSPECE AND’ RESULTS. 
THE TRADITIONAL AND INDUCTIVE VIEWS OF 
INSPIRATION COMPARED. 


‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now.’ —S¢. John xvi. 12. 


From the discussions in which we have been 
engaged two conceptions of Inspiration seem to 
emerge, which we may call respectively the Tra- 
ditional and the Inductive or Critical. And it now 
becomes our duty to compare these two conceptions, 
to see how they are related to each other and how 
far they are capable of being combined in a single 
resultant conception. 

So far it may well seem that the object of these 
lectures has been only to state and advocate the 
inductive or critical theory in opposition to the 
traditional. And it is true that where the two come 
into direct collision, as in other matters of human 
thought, the more scientific statement is to be 
accepted. This is true, but it is not the whole truth, 
because the inductive or critical theory needs to be 


392 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


supplemented; and when it is supplemented the two 
theories will be found to approximate to each other 
more nearly, and even where they do not exactly 
meet, the gap between them is in a manner bridged 
over. We can see historically how it arose; and we 
can also see theoretically how by a slight change of 
definitions it may be diminished. 


I. But before we can consider these approximations 
between the two theories we shall do well to pass 
rapidly over the ground we have traversed, in order 
to have them both presented to our minds as clearly 
as possible, and in order to see just μον far the gap 
between them extends. 

The traditional theory needs little description. 
Fifty years ago it may be said to have been the 
common belief of Christian men, at least in this 
country. It may have been held somewhat vaguely 
and indefinitely, and those who held it might, if 
pressed upon the subject, have made concessions 
which would have involved them in perplexities. But 
speaking broadly, the current view may be said to 
have been that the Bible as a whole and in all its 
parts was the Word of God, and as such that it was 
endowed with all the perfections of that Word. Not 
only did it disclose truths about the Divine nature and 
operation which were otherwise unattainable, but all 
parts of it were equally authoritative, and in history as 
well as in doctrine it was exempt from error. It was 
not quite a hard and fast view. Some kinds of error 
might be admitted, and there might be no clear 


Two Theories of Inspiration. 393 


dividing line where these possibilities of error were 
to stop, but it would be agreed that they could not 
extend to anything of importance. They would 
belong chiefly to the sphere of the text: it might be 
allowed that the true text could not always be 
discovered; but when once it had been discovered 
it could not be otherwise than infallible. 

This was the view commonly held fifty years ago. 
And when it comes to be examined it is found to be 
substantially not very different from that which was 
held two centuries after the Birth of Christ. The | 
chief difference would be as to the exact list of books | 
which constituted the Bible. The properties ascribed 
to those which held an acknowledged position in it 
were much the same. 

Nay more ; it was possible to go further back still. 
Of course it was not until about the year 200 a.p. that 
there could be said to be a New Testament by the 
side of the Old. But the Old Testament existed at 
least two centuries earlier; and even then the same 
attributes were ascribed to it. The full conception of 
the Bible as a Sacred Book was already formed; and 
when the Books of the New Testament came to be 
added to those of the Old, both were included under 
the same general idea. Indeed the one proof which 
in all ages has been the simplest and most effective as 
to the validity of that idea was the extent to which 
it was recognised in the sayings of Christ Himself. 

It is no doubt a great inversion of method when 
the Books of the two Testaments are interrogated 
without any assumption whatever beyond that of a 


394 VITI. Retrospect and Results. 


Personal God who might be conceived as capable of 
putting Himself into communication with men. Yet 
even when so interrogated, we found them speak 
with no uncertain sound in their claim to a real 
Divine inspiration. 

We started from the Prophets, because in the 
Prophets not only the fact of Inspiration but the 
manner of it are most evident. The distinguishing 
characteristic of the prophets, first of their speech and 
action and afterwards of their writings, was the firm 
and unwavering belief that they were instruments or 
organs of the Most High, and that the thoughts 
which arose in their minds about Him and His Will, 
and the commands and exhortations which they issued 
in His Name, really came at His prompting, and were 
really invested with His authority. There is no 
alternative between accepting this belief as true and 
regarding it asa product of mental disease or delusion. 
But to bring such a charge, not against a few indi- 
viduals but against the whole line of prophets from 
Moses or Samuel to Malachi, is a step from which 
most of us would shrink. And the charge is refuted in 
advance by the contents of the prophecies themselves, 
which, if once we allow that there is a God, make 
those affirmations about Him which the world has 
pronounced to be the best and truest, and which it has 
taken as the centre of its beliefs to this day. 

A world-wide religion which for more than thirty 
centuries has been taking increasing hold on the most 
highly developed races could not have its origin in 
mere mental disease. It is not denied that a con- 


Two Theortes of Inspiration. 395 


viction such as that entertained by the prophets has 
its analogies among heathen and savage peoples. 
Neither would it be denied that there is some relative 
justification for these lower forms of the idea, however 
to all appearance rude and barbarous. They would 
be related to the higher forms as rudimentary struc- 
tures in the physical organism are related to the 
corresponding developed and perfected structures. 
It must not be thought that God is present only in 
a single creed and that all others alike are destitute of 
Him. It is rather His method to lead men gradually, 
and sometimes by circuitous routes, to the better 
understanding of Himself. 

There is also this further difference, that whereas in 
heathen and savage religions ,there is too often a 
mysterious infusion of evil affecting the heart's core of 
the religion itself, in the case of the religion of Israel 
this element was wonderfully kept away; not indeed so 
as to leave no traces in the mass of the nation, which 
always ran the risk of contagion from the surrounding 
heathenism, but so that the writings which have come 
down to us as authoritative are singularly free from it. 
They may show limitations of knowledge, they may 
show progressive stages of development, but the 
worship of Jehovah never was tainted as the other 
great religions of antiquity were tainted. It lived in 
a serener region and breathed a purer air. 

Of this religion the prophets were the organs. It 
was they who made it what it was. And that which 
enabled them to impress this high stamp upon it 
was what we call their inspiration, the gift by which 


396 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


God Himself spake through them and made them the 
channels of the communication of His Will to men. 

The prophets let us see the workings of this 
inspiration. And having once realized what it is, we 
have a standard by which we can argue backwards 
and forwards. We can argue backwards to one like 
Moses, of whom the documents are too late to give 
us a perfectly adequate portraiture. We know how- 
ever that he was a prophet himself and the founder of 
the prophetic religion, so that we cannot be wrong in 
ascribing to him the laying down of its most essential 
features. 

And then we observe further that round the nucleus 
of prophetic and primary inspiration, embodied as 
much in the Law as in the works of the prophets 
properly so called, there gathered a sort of secondary 
inspiration, the products of which are often not inferior 
in permanent value. Religion consists not only in 
the knowledge of God and of His Will, but in the 
realization of that knowledge in the heart and con- 
science, in its effect upon conduct, and in its recogni- 
tion by acts of worship and praise. It was therefore a 
matter of great importance that these forms of appleed 
revelation, if we may so call it, should also receive 
classical expression, both as a model to after-ages and 
as a school of devout feeling. And that classical 
expression it is natural to seek at the hands of those 
who, if not immediately gifted with a new and special 
insight into the nature of God and His dealings with 
them, yet lived in close contact with those who were 
so gifted and were in a position really and vitally to 


Two Theortes of Inspiration. 307 


assimilate their teaching. It is natural to seek along 
with the revelation for the practical commentary upon 
revelation, pressing it home into the chinks and 
crannies of daily life and responding to the gift by 
a worthy offering of thanks and praise to God, the 
Giver. We seek for this and we find it, as we should 
expect, when we approach most nearly to the foun- 
g, of the Divine self- 
communication. There were in Israel other classes, 


tain-head, the living well-sprin 


priests, psalmists, wise men, some of whom were by 
no means untouched with the direct gift of prophecy, 
but who were still more largely impregnated with the 
prophetic teaching to an extent which fitted them for 
applying it in new directions. They did so not as 
hirelings in the house of God, but as privileged mem- 
bers of the inner circle of His chosen ones. From the 
point of view of the manner of their inspiration, as 
compared with that of the prophets it must be de- 
scribed as secondary; but judged by the value of its 
results, the inspiration of priests, psalmists, and wise 
men is not inferior to that of the prophets themselves. 

At the same time we cannot be surprised if, in this 
process of the application to life and worship of the 
central truths of the religion, there are some parts 
which are more distant from the centre than others, 
and proportionately influenced in less degree by the 
principles which are most fundamental. The glowing 
mass which sends forth light and heat loses both by 
radiation. So in the Old Testament, whereas there 
are on the one hand books, like the prophecies of 
Isaiah and Jeremiah, which are throughout the work 


398 VIIT. Retrospect and Results. 


of men strongly inspired and gifted with the faculty 
of not only applying old truths but creating new ones; 
and whereas there are other books, like the Psalms, 
the authors of which, while not exactly creating, do 
a work which is no less valuable by cultivating and 
giving adequate expression to religious feeling; there 
are on the other hand books, like Ecclesiastes, which, 
though grave and sincere and up to a certain point 
really religious, have not strength of faith enough to 
master the problems with which they wrestle; or 
again, like the Books of Chronicles, where there is 
a genuine warmth of religious feeling, but imperfect 
historical method and defective sense of historical 
accuracy; or lastly, like the Book of Esther, which 
probably never professed to be in the strict sense 
history, and which does not even point a very exalted 
moral. In other words, there are some books in 
which the Divine element is at the maximum and 
others in which it is at the mznzmum. When we come 
to reflect, it may be seen that the lower modes have 
a place in relation to the Divine purpose (which in- 
cludes both high and low) that is not less appropriate 
than the higher, but from our present standpoint they 
must be described as lower. 

In like manner as to the New Testament. Just 
as in the Old Testament the central phenomenon is 
Prophecy, so in the New the central phenomenon is 
the outpouring of the Spirit, and the special endow- 
ment conferred by it upon those who came under its 
influence, and more particularly upon the Apostles. 
And while there are some books in which the 


Two Theories of Inspiration. 399 


presence of this gift is as clear as the sun at noonday, 
there is one, and I do not myself think more than one, 
the Second Epistle of St. Peter, which is probably at 
least to this extent a counterfeit, that it appears under 
a name which is not that of its true author. We 
observe too that the Historical Books of the New 
Testament, like those of the Old, whatever the sanc- 
tity attaching to them from their contents, are yet in 
the first instance strictly histories, put together by 
ordinary historical methods, or in so far as the 
methods on which they are composed are not ordinary, 
due rather to the peculiar circumstances of the case 
and not to influences which need be specially de- 
scribed as supernatural. 

To sum up then, we may compare the Traditional 
and Inductive theories of Inspiration thus. The in- 
spiration implied by both is real and no fiction, a 
direct objective action of the Divine upon the human. 
Nay, in one sense, if the inductive conception of 
Inspiration is not more real than the other, it is at 
least more thoroughly realized, because it is not some- 
thing which is simply taken for granted but comes 
freshly and spontaneously, in such a way that the mind 
can get a full and vigorous impression of it, from the 
study of the documents themselves. The danger of 
the traditional view is lest inspiration should be 
thought of as something dead and mechanical; when 
it is arrived at inductively it must needs be conceived 
as something vital and organic. It is a living product 
which falls naturally into its place in the development 
of the purpose of the Living God. It is not therefore 


400 VII. Retrospect and Results. 


in the least degree inferior in quality to traditional 
inspiration. - 50 far as they differ it would be rather 
in quantity, inasmuch as on the inductive view inspira- 
tion is not inherent in the Bible as such, but is pre- 
sent in different books and parts of books in different 
degrees. More particularly on this view—and here is 
the point of greatest divergence—it belongs to the 
Historical Books rather as conveying a religious 
lesson than as histories, rather as interpreting than 
as narrating plain matter of fact. The crucial issue 
is that in this last respect they do not seem to be 
exempted from possibilities of error. 

In the course of our inquiry we saw, or thought we 
saw, how the traditional theory of inspiration had been 
reached from a basis such as that which has been 
critically verified. It had been reached by a simple 
process of enlargement or extension, properties which 
the prophets and lawgivers of Israel claimed for them- 
selves in their own proper spheres being applied to 
other writers in a different sphere or being applied to 
themselves otherwise than in their capacity as_pro- 

hets and lawgivers. The prophets of Israel were 
also to a large extent its historians. But it did not 
follow that the same confidence and certainty of 
affirmation which attended the prophet speaking pro- 
phetically, also attended him as a writer of history. 
As to that we can only judge by a study of the facts. 
But the methods pursued in the writing of history 
were wholly different from those by which at some 
particular moral crisis the prophet became an organ 
for conveying the Divine Will. It cannot be said 


Two Theortes of Inspiration. 401 


that the writing of history as practised by the Hebrews 
required, or that as a matter of fact it shows, signs 
of supernatural intervention. The Hebrew, like the 
Greek or Roman, made use of previously existing 
documents or of oral tradition. It is only when he 
stops to moralize that his true prophetic character 
comes out; and even then he does not write under 
the special af/atus by which he delivered his message 
as prophet, but only with the help of reflexion on the 
principles of the Divine action which by intermittent 
visitations were made known to him or other members 
of his order. But nothing could lie nearer at hand 
than to bracket the different activities of the prophet 
together, and in fact to bracket together as subject to 
precisely the same laws all the different activities which 
went to make up the Sacred Volume. 

It is just the same with the New Testament. The 
preface to St. Luke’s Gospel breathes a different spirit 
from that in which St. Paul wrote his Epistles. In 
the one authority speaks, in the other a patient collec- 
tion of testimony. In the one we see the recipient of 
special revelations, who had been caught up into the 
third heaven, and who prophesied and spake with 
tongues more than all his contemporaries ; in the other 
we see plain human care and research, dealing it is 
true with sacred things, but dealing with them on the 
side on which they become visible and tangible ; setting 
down faithfully what had been heard and seen, and 
having its reward—but a reward appropriate to the 
gifts exercised and not one appropriate to a different 
set of gifts, to which the writer made no claim. 

Dd 


402 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


II. But I began this lecture by saying that the 
inductive theory needs to be supplemented. How is 
this? We call the theory ‘inductive’ because it starts 
by examining the consciousness of the Biblical writers. 
It inquires what they say, or what they give us to 
understand, as to the nature of their own inspiration. 
It sets out from the mind of the individual writer. 

But if we take a wider range, and look at the diver- 
sified products of this individual inspiration, and see 
how they combine together, so as to be πο longer 
detached units but articulated members in a connected 
and coherent scheme, we must needs feel that-there is 
something more than the individual minds at work ; 
they are subsumed, as it were, in the operation of 
a larger Mind, that central Intelligence which directs 
and gives unity and purpose to the scattered move- 
ments and driftings of men. So much of these move- 
ments has been disclosed to us that we can see in part 
the objects to which they were tending—not of course 
the ultimate object, but such stepping-stones towards 
that ultimate object as history has revealed to us. 

In the light so vouchsafed to us, we are no longer 
confined for our data to the consciousness of the indi- 
vidual writer, but we may take in the tendency of these 
isolated efforts as gravitating towards a common goal 
and as forming part of a larger scheme. We may 
study the operations not only of these individual minds 
but of the central Mind, and ask if they too have not 
something to tell us. 

Now we have more than once had occasion to 
observe in the course of our inquiry how certain events 


Traces of a Higher Providence. 403 


which from the point of view of a contemporary must 
have seemed of very little importance, mere accidents 
almost as they might be called, which at the time made 
hardly any difference in the balance of active forces, 
yet proved in the sequel to have been of immense 
importance, in fact to have done little less than change 
the face of the world. 

The committing of the prophets’ discourses to 
writing was one such event. For the generation 
which it addressed the writing was probably less 
effective than the living speech; but it stereotyped 
that speech for all future generations; in fact it was 
the first step in a number of steps which gave to the 
world the Bible. How little can Amos and Hosea 
have seen of the significance of what they were 
doing ! 

Another event,no less momentous, was when St. Paul 
called one of his companions to his side to dictate to 
him what perhaps at first was meant to be a few lines 
of encouragement to one of the Churches which he 
had lately founded or recently visited in person. The 
letters by degrees get longer, and include teaching as 
well as encouragement, until they grow into elaborate 
treatises like the Epistle to the Romans. When the 
Christian remembers that the letters so written form 
the greater part of his corpus of authoritative theology, 
he cannot help seeing a marked disproportion between 
the circumstances of its origin and the magnitude of 
the result. Here too he may see the directing Mind at 
work with objects within its ken which no one saw of 


those more immediately concerned, neither writer nor 
Dda 


404 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


scribes nor readers, nor (we may add) for some time 
to come those who were entrusted with the custody 
of the letters when written. 

But when once we introduce this Providential dispo- 
sition of events, we understand other things which 
apart from it would be dark to us. Take, for instance, 
that wonderful phenomenon of Messianic Prophecy. It 
is now seen that it is a mistake to suppose that the 
prophets who prophesied of the Messiah had definitely 
before them the Birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, and His 
Life in Galilee and Judaea, and His Death on Calvary. 
What they saw was something arising out of, suggested 
by, the circumstances of their own time, an ideal figure 
projected into the future, and, as probably they may 
have thought, the immediate future. No one of the 
figures thus imagined adequately corresponds to the 
real Birth and Life and Death of Christ. They need 
to be combined, and a key by which to combine them 
has to be sought. How are we to bring together those 
two parallel lines of prophecy, which exist side by side 
in the Old Testament but nowhere meet, the ideal 
King, the descendant of David, and the ideal Prophet, 
the suffering Servant of Jehovah!? What have two 
such different conceptions in common with each other ? 
They seem to move in different planes, with nothing 
even to suggest their coalescence. We turn the page 
which separates the New Testament from the Old. 
We look at the Figure which is delineated there, and 
we find in it a marvellous meeting of traits derived 
from the most different and distant sources, from 

1 Cf. Driver, Sermons, p. 70. 


Traces of a Higher Providence. 405 


Nathan, from Amos, from First Isaiah, from Second 
Isaiah, from Zechariah, from Daniel, from the Second 
Psalm, from the Twenty-second, from the Sixty-ninth, 
from the Hundred-and-tenth. And these traits do not 
meet, as we might expect them to do, in some laboured 
and artificial compound, but in the sweet and gracious 
figure of Jesus of Nazareth—King, but not as men 
count kingship; crowned, but with the crown of 
thorns; suffering for our redemption, but suffering 
only that He may reign. 

There is yet another direction in which we may see 
a purpose at work in the Old Testament beyond any 
that was present to the minds of the writers. One 
whole book, the Song of Songs, and parts of other 
books, especially the Psalms, have long been applied 
in the Christian Church in a sense different from that 
which was originally intended. Are we called upon 
to throw over utterly all this secondary application ? 
I think not, so long as we draw a clear distinction in 
our own minds between this secondary application and 
the primary. A book means in the strict sense what 
its writer intended, and nothing more. That is clearly 
all that we can press in the way of argument. If we 
go beyond it and are challenged, we have nothing to 
do but to give way. At the same time there are 
subtle analogies in things. The spiritual world and 
the material world are ‘double, the one against the 
other. Both proceed from the hand of the same 
Creator, and He has impressed similar laws upon 
them. Hence it is not an illegitimate process to make 
use of these analogies, to speak of the spiritual in 


406 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


terms of the not-spiritual, if by so doing spiritual 
things are brought home more closely to the apprehen- 
sion. A twofold advantage results from this. Things 
not spiritual are refined and sanctified by their associa- 
tion with the spiritual, and spiritual things are made 
more intelligible by their translation into forms which 
are more level to the common understanding. Imagi- 
nation has its proper field in religion, and the shapes 
which it has woven round the sterner realities are both 
innocent and beautiful, provided that they are not mis- 
taken for something more substantial. 

Here then there is added to the conclusions arrived 
at by strict and rigorous induction a wide expanse in 
which the devout mind may expatiate, not confining 
itself to those scientific propositions, which alone can 
be rightly pressed upon the unbeliever, and which 
alone the believer can take as his foundation; the 
devout mind, if it will, may soar above these and either 
dwell upon the traces of a higher teleology in the ways 
of Providence, or else delight itself by discovering the 
relations and affinities between things seen and things 
unseen. The follower of the older view of inspiration 
did this with more emphasis and with less caution ; 
but if he clearly recognises the distinction between 
what can be verified and what cannot be verified, he 
is not called upon either to abandon all that a pious 
fancy has accumulated in the past or to desist from 
the employment of like methods in the future. 


III. But now that we have done what we could to 
define the relations of the inductive theory to the 


The Sanction of Chrest. 407 


traditional, and to show how even where they differ 
the former stretches out hands in the direction of the 
latter, we come at last to a branch of the argument 
which I have hitherto reserved, from no desire to 
minimize its importance, the argument from the usage 
of our Lord and the Apostles. How far does that 
usage sanction the one theory or the other ? 

Two preliminary remarks must be made before we 
attempt to answer this question. The first is, that 
whatever view our Lord Himself entertained as to the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament, the record of His 
words has certainly come down to us through the 
medium of persons who shared the current views on 
the subject. ‘We must therefore be prepared for the 
possibility that His acta in regard to it have not been 
reported with absolute accuracy.) Some allowance 
should be made for this, but not I think very much 
allowance. The sayings which bear upon the subject 
of Inspiration, perhaps with just one or two excep- 
tions, have every appearance of being faithfully 
preserved 1. 

The other observation is, that the sayings on this 
subject partake, and that in a high degree, in the 
fragmentariness which is a general characteristic of 
the Gospels. ‘Nowhere have we direct and express 
teaching on the Old Testament?.) Our inferences in 


1 See Additional Note A: On St. Matthew xit. 40, 41, and 
St. John x. 35. 

2 «Le Sauveur et les Apdtres ont cité un corps d’Ecritures divines, 
et il ne parait pas que dans leur enseignement ils aient voulu rien 
innover en ce qui convenait l’étendue et l’autorité de cette collection. 


408 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


regard to it have to be pieced together from a number 
of side-allusions. There are few topics on which we 
have so much reason to wish that more had been told 
us. We feel that there is so much more behind the 
glimpses which are given us. How much easier our 
task might be, and what precious insight might we 
have obtained, if only a hint here and a word there 
had been more fully developed! There are some 
things which it was the Will of God that we should be 
left to make out for ourselves, and make out by slow 
degrees. And the hints which are given to us were 
not meant to supersede but only to stimulate efforts 
of our own. 

There is the more reason to wish for greater 
light from the Gospels because the data which they 
contain do not seem to be all of one kind. They 
seem to point in different directions; and to the 
particular question which we have been led to ask 
they might seem to give different answers. One set 
of passages seems simply to fall in with the current 
view, which another set of passages conspicuously 
transcends. 

The acceptance of the traditional estimate appears 
to be most complete in the region of criticism. It is 
not possible to point to any anticipation of modern 
theories in this respect. Moses is repeatedly spoken of 


Ni les écrits apostoliques, ni la tradition de I’Felise chrétienne ne 
portent la trace d’une décision expresse rendue par Jésus-Christ ou 
les Apotres touchant le canon de |’Ancien Testament, et bien moins 
encore d'une décision qui aurait formellement rectifié les opinions 
recues dans le monde juif’ (Loisy, Canon de ἢ 44. T. p. 97). 


The Sanction of Christ. 409 


as the author of the Pentateuch!. A Psalm is quoted 
as David's which, whatever its true date, it seems 
difficult to believe really came from him®. The Book 
of Daniel is assumed to be really the work of the 
prophet of that name 3,—but this it is right to say is 
only in one Gospel, where the mention of Daniel may 
be an insertion of the Evangelist’s. The stories of 
Noah # and of Jonah® are both referred to as literal 
history, though with some critical doubt attaching to 
a part of the last instance. In one passage of peculiar 
strangeness and difficulty δ a parenthesis is thrown in 
which again may proceed from the Evangelist and not 
from our Lord Himself, ‘and the Scripture cannot be 
broken’ (καὶ οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι ἡ ypady)—which seems 
to mean that its dzcfa, even where we should naturally 
take them as figurative, must be true. And to crown 
all, we have in the Sermon on the Mount that strong 
assertion, ‘Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and 
earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass away from the Law, till all things be accom- 
plished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of 
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, 
shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven ; but 
whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called 
great in the kingdom of heaven %.’ 

1 Matt. xix. 8 (cf Mark x. 3, 5); Mark xii. 26 (=Luke xx. 37); 
Luke xvi. 29, 31; John v. 45, 46; vii. 19, 22, 23. 

* Matt. xxii. 43, 45 (=Mark xii. 36, 37, Luke xx. 42, 44); of 
Driver, Jntrod., p. 362 f. 8 Matt. xxiv. 15. 

* Matt. xxiv. 37-39 (=Luke xvii. 26, 27). 

5 Matt. xii. 40, 41; xvi. 4 (Cf Luke xi. 29, 30). 

ὁ John x. 34-36. 1 Matt. v.18, 19: 


410 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


And yet on the other hand, almost in the same 
breath 1 with this affirmation of the inviolability of the 
Mosaic Law, we have a magisterial succession of new 
commands, each of them prefaced with a direct 
antithesis to some older command of like subject- 
matter: ‘Ye have heard that it was said to them of 
old time . . . but I say unto you?” Side by side 
with the condemnation of those who break one of the 
least of the legal injunctions, we have a saying which 
sweeps away not one but a whole class of these 
injunctions: ‘Hear Me all of you, and understand: 
there is nothing from without the man, that going 
into him can defile him: but the things which proceed 
out of the man are those that defile the man.’ To 
which it is added in the correct text of the Second 
Gospel, ‘This He said’ [supplied from the preceding 
verse] ‘ making all meats clean?’; in other words, re- 
voking in one sentence all the elaborate distinctions of 
clean and unclean contained in the Book of Leviticus. 
And in reference to another of these Levitical com- 
mands it is expressly said that it was given only 
for a time ‘for the hardness of heart’ of previous 
generations #. 

If the Son of Man was Lord over the Sabbath®, it 


" The critical question must be reserved as to the probability that 
the second series of sayings was really spoken in close juxtaposition 
with the first. Many critics treat them as incompatible with each 
other; but I believe them to be perfectly compatible. The moral 
laxity which seeks to evade an acknowledged duty is one thing, the 
deeper view of the nature of that duty is another. 

* Matt.v. 21, 22; 27; 283) 39794 = 4a 1 

8 Mark vii. 14,15, τὸ. * Matt. xix. 8. 5 Mark ii. 28. 


The Sanction of Christ. 41 


is clear that He was Lord not only over the Fourth 
Commandment but over the whole of the Law, with 
plenary power to correct and repeal; nay more, with 
power not only to substitute new commandments for 
the old, but to substitute Himself as the way of 
righteousness and of life for the whole body of written 
law '. 

The key to a great part of the seeming discrepancy 
lies in the sovereign breadth of view and deep 
penetration of insight by which the Founder and 
Master of our faith was enabled to seize the spirit 
of the Old Testament legislation and to ensure that 
even the letter (at least of the moral commands) 
should be observed more effectively than it had been 
by striking down to the root of motive which the 
letter could not reach. 

It is not only the Law which receives this drastic 
treatment, but all that is most authoritative in the Old 
Testament. The love, the sincere heart-felt love of 
God, and the love of our neighbour; on these two 
commandments, we are told, ‘hang all the Law and 
the Prophets?’ Therefore it is that where the love 
of God and of man are so powerfully reinforced, even 
in the very act of seeming abrogation, the Law and 
the Prophets are not abolished but fulfilled. In their 
essence they receive a new lease of life, and of life 
more vigorous than they had ever had before. 

There is something deeply tragic in the thought 
that the Jews should have brought about the cruci- 


1 Rom. x. 4; John v. 4o. 2 Matt. xxii. 40. 


412 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


fixion, as a transgressor and enemy of their Law, of 
Him Who was to cause the world-wide spread and 
triumph of all that was best in it. Their own fidelity 
to that Law is a most pathetic spectacle. It was not 
all mere formalism; and even where it was or is 
formalism, our Christian formalism is worse, because it 
involves less severe self-restraint, less sacrifice, and 
less suffering. But if only God’s ancient people had 
known in that their day the things that belonged unto 
their peace! If only the eyes of their understanding 
had been opened to see, that the Law which they 
cherished was not being destroyed but transmuted, 
renewed as it were in a higher sphere, putting off the 
rudiments of the letter to reappear as a world-moving 
energy of the Spirit! If they could but have under- 
stood this, that splendid tenacity of theirs would have 
had a nobler object and a far richer and grander 
reward ! 

The Jews had the two commands!, of love to God ᾿ 
and man, which are simply extracted from their Law, 
and which it is still within their power to study and to 
practise. But one thing they cannot have, without 
taking a step which is harder for them to take. They 
cannot have the true key to the fulfilment of those 
commands. They cannot have the help and the 
repose which flow from the Person of Him Who said, 
‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest*.’ There it was that 
they knew not the time of their visitation, and that 


ASDeit wi, 6% Ley. xe 18, 2 Matt. xi. 28, 


The Sanction of Christ. 413 


a blindness happened to them in part. Would that it 
might prove to have been only in part, and that the 
heart’s desire of the Apostle who was driven against 
his will to turn to the Gentiles might be not too long 
before it is fulfilled. ‘I say then, Did they stumble 
that they might fall? God forbid: but by their fall 
salvation is come to the Gentiles, for to provoke them 
to jealousy. Now if their fall is the riches of the 
world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how 
much more their fulness? ...As touching the Gospel, 
they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the 
election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. 
For the gifts and the calling of God are without 
repentance 1.’ 


There is no real difficulty in reconciling the 
seemingly contradictory sayings in regard to the Law, 
though we cannot but observe that the procedure of 
Christ and His Apostles in reference to the Law was 
more revolutionary than anything that is involved 
in accepting the lessons of criticism. The question 
between the observance of the Law in the letter and 
the spirit was nothing less than a difference of dis- 
pensations. The question between a Bible construed 
critically and a Bible construed uncritically is far 
more a difference of process than of results. The 
Voice of God still speaks through it to man, and still 
speaks the same eternal truths in more intelligible 
and living tones. 

It must however be frankly admitted that even 


ΣΚΌΤΗ ΣΙ ΤΙ 12. 28: 20: 


414 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


when deductions have been made, as some deductions 
must be made, on critical grounds, there still remains 
evidence enough that our Lord while upon earth ad 
use the common language of His contemporaries in 
regard to the Old Testament; that He did speak—if 
not of Daniel as the author of the book which bears 
his name, yet of Moses as the author of the Penta- 
teuch, and of David as the author of one of the later 
Psalms; and that He did apply to His own day 
some part at least of the story of Jonah and the 
story of Noalhvas literal narrative. 

What are we to say to this? May we not accept it 
as a fact,,and let it enter simply as an element into 
our conceptions? Or must we, as some would have 
us, reverse the whole course of criticism and undo 
it to the beginning, like Penelope's web? 

No doubt we may justly and rightly test the critical 
processes with all the care and caution we can 
command. No doubt we may suspend our judgment 
about them to the last moment. And if we exercise 
a deliberate delay and reserve in regard to them, that 
too will be pardonable ; it will be only waiting to see 
how far they stand the test of other minds besides our 
own. But when the mind is made up, not to a single 
conclusion here or a single conclusion there, but to a 
whole network of conclusions which hang together and 
form a coherent body of thought, it would be an act 
of violence to the intellectual conscience to arrest the 
process and suppress its results even at the bidding of 
the highest authority. 

But is there any such bidding? In other words, is 


The Sanction of Chrest. 415 


it inconsistent with our Christian belief to suppose 
that He Who called Himself the Son of Man along 
with the assumption of human flesh and a human 
mind should also have assumed the natural workings 
of such a mind, even in its limitations ? 

We may consider the question from two points of 
view, theologically, and (as the ancients would have 
said) economically, z. ¢. with reference to the methods 
of revelation. 

Theologically I would rather that others should 
speak, who have approached the subject, not as I have 
approached it from the Biblical and inductive side, but 
rather from the side of formulated doctrine. Happily 
many of those who are best entitled to be heard have 
spoken. And although it cannot be said that there is 
complete agreement among them, many of the most 
reverent and most careful of our theologians, men 
of the most scrupulous and tender loyalty to the 
historical decisions both of the Undivided Church and 
of our own, have pronounced that there is no 
inconsistency, that limitations of knowledge might be 
and were assumed along with other limitations by 
Him Who was in all things made like unto His 
brethren, though without 51η 1. 


* Compare what is said in Zhe Oracles of God, p. 103 (text and 
note). Since that was written a number of essays and books have 
appeared the conclusions of which are entirely consistent with the 
views here put forward. The following may be mentioned :—Mr. 
Gore, Preface to the roth edition of Lux Mundi, p. xxxii. ff. ; 
Bampton Lectures (London, 1891), pp. 147 ff., 267; Dr. Plummer, 
‘The Advance of Christ in S0@1A,’ Levpostfor, 1891, ii. 1 ff.; Mr. 
W. 5. Swayne, Our Lord’s Knowledge as Man (with a preface by the 


416 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


But when it is examined the theological question is 
found to run up into the economical. The limitations 
which the Son of God accepted when He became 
Man all had reference to the purpose of His Incarna- 
tion; and we have therefore to consider what came 
or what did not come within that purpose. I take 
a judicially weighed and balanced statement by one of 
the most trusted of my colleagues, Dr. Bright. He 
writes as follows: ‘In regard to this latter point 
[the function of our Lord as the Prophet and Light 
of the world], His human mind could receive, through 
ordinary human media, real accessions of knowledge ; 
even during His ministry He could humanly ask for 
information on points which in no sense touched 
His Messianic office ; on the very eve of His glorifi- 
cation, He did not humanly “know” the appointed 
time of His Second Advent. Now it would be a 
strange inference that because He was in this sense 
non-cognisant of some matters on which He did 
not affirm, He was therefore capable of error, and 
~ could mislead- His hearers, on matters on which He 


Bishop of Salisbury), London, 1891; Canon Bodington, Jesus the 
Christ, Lichfield, 1892 (this very careful and thoughtful paper was 
brought to my notice by Dr. Gregory Smith). Mr. De Romestin’s 
‘ How knoweth this Man letters?’ (London and Oxford, 1891) is 
judicial and contains a useful collection of Patristic passages, but can 
hardly be reckoned as favourable in its results (see p. 43). A line of 
more decided opposition is taken by Mr. H. E. Clayton, ‘ Zhe 
“ Advancement” of our Lords Humanity’ (Oxford, 1891); Mr. 
W. F. Hobson, Some Aspects of the Incarnation (London and Oxford, 
n.d.); the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, Chris/‘us Comprobator 
(London, n. d. [1891 ]}). 


The Sanction of Christ. 417 


did affirm. Whatever He explicitly or implicitly 
taught, whether as to the kingdom of God, or the 
will of the Father, or His own unique claims, or the 
Scriptures which testified of Him, must have been the 
expression of a knowledge which flooded His mind 
with Divine light; He could not, without . 561 
contradiction, have been either peccable as Man or 
fallible as Teacher ¥’ 

Here it will be seen that everything turns upon the 
question, What Christ did affirm in the strict sense, 
what He did deliberately set Himself to teach, what 
was and what was not included in His Messianic 
office. Now it may be maintained that all those 
points on which there may seem to be any collision 
between the language used by Christ and modern 
inquiry are not of the nature of direct affirmation 
or explicit teaching and were in no way essential to 
His Messianic office, but that they all belong to the 
presuppositions of His humanity; like the Aramaic 
or Greek which He spoke with its peculiarities of 
vocabulary and grammar. 

This however is a point on which I wish to enlarge 
somewhat, because for our present subject and for 
the particular line of argument which we have been 
following it seems to me of great importance. 

And first, \we observe that there is a law running 
through the whole of Revelation which, after the 
example of the logicians, we might call perhaps the 
Law of Parsimony; the law, I mean-Sthat all 


1 The Incarnation as a Motive Power, p. 300, ed. 2. 
Ee 


418 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


revelation is suited to the condition of those who 
are to receive it, that it starts from the actual 
circumstances in which they are placed, and that it 
tells them what is essential for them to know and not 
really more—for although there may be a latent 
meaning which comes out in the wider survey of 
God's purposes, we certainly cannot lay down before- 
hand how far this meaning shall extend. Even 
predictive prophecy, which more than any other form 
of revelation has to do with the future, starts from the 
present and takes its whole cast and colour from the 
surroundings of the moment. 

This I say is a law of God’s Providence in general, 
and the revelation made to us through Jesus Christ is 
no exception to it. It is true that this revelation is 
the culmination of all revelation and that it has a 
surprising width of range, so as in some respects to 
look forward not only to our own time but beyond it 
into dim and distant futurity. But all this wonderful 
outlook starts from a certain well-defined historical 
situation. There are certain clearly prescribed limits 
which it does not overpass. It is as if the Son did 
not wish to hurry the counsels of the Father, but 
kept constantly saying, ‘My times are in Thy hand.’ 
One great example of this was the restriction of 
His mission to Israel. All was laid ready for 
the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles ; such 
a Gospel could not help being preached both far and 
wide; within a generation it was so preached; and 
yet the three years of our Lord’s own ministry were 
all but strictly confined to Jews, and to Jews of 


The Sanction of Christ. 419 


Palestine’. The limitation was tolerated, even 
though it was so soon to be removed. 

May we not discern something like this in other 
directions ? [5 there not what we might perhaps call 
a neutral zone among our Lord's sayings? Sayings, 
I mean, in which He takes up ideas and expressions 
current at the time and uses without really endorsing 
them. There were many matters which it was the 
will of God to have altered some day, but ‘the time 
was not yet.’/ And the Son entered so far into the 
mind of the Father as to leave these matters where 
they were, and to forbear from making any change in 
regard to them. 

Sometimes He does this with a kind of irony, having 
special reference to the persons with whom He is 
dealing. For instance, in regard to the very: point of 
which we were just speaking, the restriction of His 
mission to Israel, He seems on one occasion to express 
this in terms of the narrowest Jewish particularism. It 
is in His answer to the Syro- Phoenician woman, ‘ It is 
not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the 
dogs’ (Matt. xv. 26). A severe, and as we might be 
tempted to think, a harsh and unfeeling answer; and 
yet it was only meant to prove its recipient, and to call 
forth an outburst of humble faith on her part, with 
a flow of love and compassion in return. 

Of a kind different, and meant to prove in a different 
way but yet also meant to prove, was that question to 


1 The exceptions would be, the Centurion (Matt. viii. 5 ff.; Luke vii. 
2 ff.), the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matt. xv. 21 ff.; Mark vii. 25 ff.), 
and the Greeks mentioned in John xii. 20 ff. 
Ee2 


420 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


the Pharisees : ‘If David then calleth Him Lord, how 
is He his Son’ (Matt. xxii. 45)? It was not criticism 
or exegesis that were at issue. The true methods of 
these might well be left for discovery much later. The 
Pharisees were taken upon their own ground ; and the 
fallacy of their conclusion was shown on their own 
premises. All we need say is that our Lord refrained 
from correcting these premises. They fell within His 
‘neutral zone.’ 

Few would hesitate to apply such an explanation 
to the details of that most graphic parable of the Rich 
Man and Lazarus. ‘And it came to pass that the 
beggar died, and that he was carried away by the 
angels into Abraham’s bosom: and the rich man also 
died, and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up 
his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar 
off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and 
said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send 
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, 
and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame’ 
(Luke xvi. 22-24). What impressive and terrible sim- 
plicity, like that of a tale told by the fire-side! But it 
would surely be a mistake to say that by this parable 
the Jewish notions of Hades and Abraham’s bosom 
were fixed and made absolute for all time. 

But it will be said that anything relating to the 
Scriptures touched a more central and fundamental 
point than these. Is that quite so clear? The 
doctrine of the future state is an important matter. 
And if the doctrine of Holy Scripture is also important, 
it must be shown that those details of it which are 


The Argument from Analogy. 421 


affected by critical inquiry are really of its essence. 
After all, the best way to tell what is essential and what 
is non-essential is to see where erroneous notions have 
been allowed to prevail as a matter of fact. 

I suppose we should all be agreed that the method 
of allegory as practised by Origen was far in excess of 
what was right and reasonable. Yet Origen’s method 
deeply influenced his successors and determined the 
character of a large part of the Patristic exegesis and 
of that in use throughout the Middle Ages. But can 
it be said that the difference between a sober and 
sound exegesis and the more unrestrained kinds of 
allegory is less than that between the Bible as it is 
understood ordinarily and by the best critical methods? 
If it was the will of God to permit so much fantastic 
and wasted interpretation as there certainly was 
between Origen and the Reformation, is it not con- 
ceivable that He may have allowed wrong ideas to 
prevail, ¢.g. as to the authorship of certain books, even 
down to our own day? 

If we would but use the argument from Analogy 
a little more freely I do not think that we should find 
anything at which we need stumble. After all, the 
Author of Nature and the Author of Revelation are 
the same ; and we cannot be surprised if we find written 
small here and there in a corner of Revelation some of 
the same characteristics which are already written large 
on the broad page of human history and develop- 
ment. When we think of the immense part which 
myth and legend and vague approximations at truth 
have borne in the thought and literatures of early 


432 VIII. Retrospect and Results. ; 


peoples, and how very partial and imperfect history of 
all kinds has been, and in many of its departments still 
is, there can be nothing abnormal if similar elements 
enter to some extent into the Bible. 

Of course it is urged that but few other literatures 
put forward the claim which the Bible puts forward to 
be a direct communication from God. And there are 
some who would absolutely deny this claim as made by 
any other religion, and absolutely affirm it for the Bible. 
But the one thing which history and criticism do dis- 
prove is this idea of absoluteness in all its forms. The 
methods of God's Providence are not of this character: 
This all white, that all black; here nothing but light, 
there nothing but darkness. Even in things evil there 
is a soul of good; and even upon things good there is 
a touch of imperfection. The true method by which 
Divine Providence has worked is indicated in that 
most pregnant phrase of St. Paul’s, ‘The purpose of 
God according to selection’ (ἡ Kat ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις τοῦ 
Θεοῦ. The universal law of the Divine order is 
‘selection ’—not always ‘natural selection,’ for in the 
sphere of revelation we believe that the selection is 
supernatural, or due to more direct Divine action—but 
everywhere selection. Certain peoples are chosen ; and 
certain classes within those peoples; and certain indi- 
viduals within those classes, to be in a special sense 
and for special purposes instruments or organs of the 
Most High. But this very idea of selection implies 
also infinite gradation and variety of tone and shade. 
Every higher phenomenon has its roots in something 
lower; the superior grows out of the inferior. But 


The Argument from Analogy. 423 


they must needs bear some traces of their origin: the 
plant which is rooted in the earth will of necessity have 
some earth cling to its roots. So the very grandest 
and sublimest of Divine revelations have been made 
through human media; and from time to time we are 
reminded that the medza are human. 

The only question between the very strictest form 
of the traditional theory and that which has been put 
forward in these lectures is as to the extent of the 
human element. And the contention which underlies 
the whole of the lectures is that the extent of it cannot 
rightly be determined by any ἃ friorz methods, by any | 
deduction from such a postulate as that Revelation is 
a self-communication from God, but only by an 
inductive and critical inquiry as to the course which | 
that self-communication has as a matter of fact taken. 

The results of such an inquiry seem to fit in 
wonderfully with all that we know from other sources — 
as to the laws of that great Kingdom of God, the plan 
which is gradually being unfolded of His operation in 
the universe. Nothing violent, nothing mechanical, 
nothing really sudden, however much it may appear 
80, but a long concatenation and subtlest interweaving 
of causes, all knit together as if in a living organism ; 
bursting, sprouting, pushing its growth upwards ; first 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. 
Truly there is a scala coelz,a ladder of ascent for the 
soul of man; and though its top is in heaven its 
foot is on earth, and though its foot is on earth its 
top is in heaven. 

In this vast ascending scale, which seems to stretch 


424 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


from the one end of the universe to the other, there is 
a place, a natural and appropriate place, for the history 
of the idea of Inspiration. If I am right in supposing 
that the present age will see a transition from the 
traditional conception to one which is more strictly 
accurate and scientific, that too would be only in 
accord with what God has willed to be the method 
and manner of progress in regard to many other like 
conceptions. We have seen how the idea of the 
Bible as the Word of God invested with all the 
attributes of the Divine Word, arose out of the fact 
that the different parts of the Bible each contained 
a number of Words of God with the attributes proper 


to them. This aggregation of Words and the one 


_ Word was not quite the same thing, because in the 


interstices between the Words there was a consider- 
able human element binding them together’. And in 
the conception of the one Word this human element 
was apt to be, and was, lost sight of. It could hardly 
be otherwise, and human things being what they are, 
it would hardly have been well for it to be otherwise. 
The idea of the One Word was a plain idea, adapted 
to the simplest understandings. It secured a proper 
respect and reverence for those great truths and great 
commands which were really Divine Words. The 
larger idea included and protected the narrower. It 


* Yet there was justification for the idea of the One Word in what 
has been said above (p. 402 ff.) as to the traces of a directing Will 
or Providence presiding over the whole. We need to realize more 
completely that human instruments even in their weakness and im- 
perfections can yet be carrying forward a Divine design. 


The Argument from Analogy. 425 


was like what the Rabbis called ‘setting up a hedge 
or fence round the Law.’ 


It would have been most dangerous at that day to | 


attempt to discriminate between Divine and human. 


The Divine would have gone with the human ; wheat | 


and tares would have been rooted up together. If 
the authority of the Bible had been broken down 
upon any one point, it would soon have been broken 
down upon all. One age can bear what another age 
cannot; and Divine Wisdom has never put upon any 
age a burden too great for it. 


When the Saviour said, ‘I have yet many things to — 


say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,’ we may 
well believe that these truths which are now coming 
out about the nature of the Bible were potentially at 
least included. Nothing that He said or refrained 
from saying on this subject ought to cause us any 
difficulty, because it is only a repetition in miniature 
of the broad outlines of God’s Providential working. 
When we think of it there is really a peculiar fitness 
and harmony in all the different parts of the Divine 
operation. It was through the Eternal Word that 
God made the worlds and impressed upon them that 
character which they have been unfolding ever since. 
Yet in some inscrutable way the Divine Omnipotence, 
if we may say so, limited itself, leaving a place for 
free-will, and with free-will of necessity also for evil. 
The Word became incarnate; and then too It volun- 
tarily assumed limitations, limitations strictly in ac- 
cordance with the plan which Divine Wisdom was 
working out, and adapted to the conditions of human 


426 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


ignorance and weakness by which Its ministry on earth 
was to be surrounded. Lastly, there is the Revealed 
or Written Word ; and that again had its limitations, 
corresponding to the progressive stages of moral 
development in man through which it was to pass, 
and of which it was to be the informing principle. It 
was given ‘in divers portions and in divers manners, 
with its several parts all conditioned by the time and 
circumstances in which they appeared, and yet so 
looking beyond them and so inter-related as to com- 
bine to form a Bible or Sacred Book, not only for the 
generations to which it was given but so long as the 
moral and spiritual nature of man remains the same. 
And in like manner as the Word itself varied in the 
successive stages by which it grew into the complete 
Volume, so also has the estimate and interpretation of 
it varied progressively, until there is reserved for us 
a new stage, which, if one of greater freedom—not than 
all but than the last of the preceding stages—is yet 
also we may hope one of greater depth and reality, 
more fully harmonized and assimilated with the whole 
body of contemporary thought. Thus we have first 
the personal Divine Word, the Agent in Creation, by 
whom the world was formed such as we see it; then 
we have the same personal Word, Divine and also 
human, moving amongst men and adapting Itself to 
them ; and thirdly, we have the Written Word, along 


' This comparison of the Λόγος ἔνσαρκος and the λόγος γραπτός was 
suggested to me by Koelling, Prolegomena zur Lehre von der 
Theopneustie (Breslau, 1890), p. 9 ff., where however it is used for 
a wholly different purpose. ‘The idea is an old one. 


The Argument from Analogy. 427 


with the interpretation of the Written Word ; all so 
many successive expressions or manifestations of the 
Godhead, yet all partaking of the same character ; all 
revealing the Godhead, not in Its pure unmixed essence, 
which no man hath seen or can see, but under such 
qualifications and conditions as make It intelligible by 
man, and intelligible by man in different ratios accord- 
ing as his own power of understanding developes. 

Is there not unity in such a conception? Has it 
not indeed the best kind of unity, which is not merely 
ἃ priort and metaphysical, but in touch with, or rather 
growing spontaneously out of, the facts of history ? 
Does it not in particular fall in with that noble concep- 
tion of Bishop Butler’s, which I hope may long be 
the fundamental conception of English theology, of 
Christianity as ‘a scheme or system imperfectly com- 
prehended ’—imperfectly comprehended, and yet so far 
disclosed as to let us see that it is a scheme, with 
analogies between its several parts ὃ 

I call this a noble conception because of its profound 
humility. It is often objected to the argument which 
makes so large a use of analogy that it is ‘a 2907. argu- 
ment, by which it is meant that it does not have 
recourse to ideal constructions, that instead of pro- 
fessing to solve the riddles which beset one part of the 
Divine operation, it contents itself with pointing out 
that there are like riddles inherent in other parts of 
the same operation. 

Let us admit that this is a poor argument?, which we 


‘In defending the argument from Analogy I do not of course 
claim for it that it is either the sole key or the best key, or indeed in 


428 VIII. Retrospect and Results. 


might paraphrase by saying that it is not an ambitious 
argument, that it does not profess to solve more than it 
does solve, and that it keeps near the ground of fact 
and reality. We will leave it to others to strike out 
the negative from the description of the dealings of 
God with men as ‘a scheme imperfectly comprehended ’; 
we will leave it to others to boast of their superior 
gnosis, and we will be content to say with St. Paul, ‘O 
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, 
and His ways past tracing out 1!’ 

There are two classes which will be impatient 
of the kind of result at which we seem to arrive in 
these lectures ; the classes which are always making 
play with the dilemma, ‘All or Nothing,’ and which 
for themselves take one or other of its two limbs. 

One class will have ‘All’ of some little system, 
whether as is most often the case descended from the 
past, or an invention of the present. This is perfectly 
clear-cut and sharp in its outlines, and it fits compactly 
together like a piece of mechanism. With it they drive 


itself a key at all, for unlocking the secrets of religion. It assumes 
the belief in a Central Personal Cause for the phenomena of the 
universe as a reasonable belief. It assumes that this Central Per- 
sonality is capable of self-communication or revelation, and that there 
are certain writings which profess to embody such a revelation, It 
only steps in to rebut the objections which are taken to these writings 
as if they were inconsistent with the character of Him from Whom 
they are said to come. The value of the argument is not direct but 
indirect, inasmuch as it gives free play to the Bible by permitting us 
to accept what it tells us about itself, and so opening our hearts to 
the influences which flow from it. 
? Rom. xi. 33. 


Conclusion. 429 


a straight furrow through the world of phenomena, 
regarding neither to right nor left, and not heeding 
what delicate flowers or what subtle interlacing growths 
their ploughshare overturns and buries. 

The other class will have ‘Nothing.’ ‘This argu- 
ment, they say, ‘breaks down; and that argument 
breaks down; and there is nothing left except that 
blank materialism which is the modern version of 
the old “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”’ 
Because there is such a thing as error in the Scriptures, 
because there are prophecies which have not been ful- 
filled and history which is not strictly accurate, because 
there are perplexities which are not removed both as to 
the nature and dealings of God and as to the duty of 
man, therefore God has not given any revelation of 
Himself at all; no Voice from the Unseen has ever 
spoken; no Hand from the Unseen has ever been 
stretched out ; it is pure delusion and self-projection of 
human fancies from beginning to end. 

But there is yet a third class who argue that beliefs 
which are so widely spread and so deeply rooted, and 
which have been proved by experience to form such 
excellent nuclei for other ideas to group themselves 
round as to the morals of life and conduct, cannot be 
mere delusion. They go back to the documents and 
look at them again; and they find that, admitting all 
that can be said as to mistakes both in the Scriptures 
themselves and in the early estimate of them, yet 
the former do not touch any of the essential features 
of Revelation and the latter does not need any great 
modification to bring it into accordance with the 


430 VILL. Retrospect and Results. 


facts. They find also that there is a multitude of 
phenomena which point towards the positive reality of 
Revelation, and which are far better explained on that 
hypothesis than upon any other. What has come 
down to us is Revelation, z.e. a number of concrete 
truths contained in written books on the subject of God 
and religion. And they are truths because these 
books are the work of inspired men, so that even 
through the printed page there speaks the Spirit of 
God. 

This is the kind of view which will naturally 
commend itself to those who have a rooted disbelief 
in the formula ‘ All or Nothing, who think that no such 
drastic theories can ever correspond to the complexity 
of phenomena, who do not expect to be able to drive 
a straight furrow through the world of thought without 
losing far more than they gain. Those who constitute 
this class are quite aware that they do not look down 
upon existence from above with a rigid theory in their 
hands which they are prepared to impose upon all that 
is presented to them. They look not down but up, 
their hearts filled with awe and wonder at the mystery 
—which is not wholly mystery—around them. They 
are conscious of ‘moving about in worlds not realized Ὁ 
—that is not fully realized, for some firm standing- 
eround is theirs which is not bare and barren, but rich 
with flower and fruit and with gleams upon it from 
heaven. 

Such will cling to their Bible ; they will clasp it all 
the more closely to their breasts, because there breathes 
beneath it a genuine human life, the life of men who 


Conclusion. 431 


though illuminated from on high were yet of like 
passions with themselves. And if they note how 
He who is the centre of ail this illumination, the Light 
which lighteth every man, coming into the world, 
touched gently, or forbore to touch, some of the 
simpler features in the faith of His contemporaries, 
they will remember that it was written, ‘Blessed is 
he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.’ 


432 Note to Lecture VIII. 


NOTE’ As 
On St. Matthew xit. 40, and St. John x. 35. 


WHEN we compare the parallel narratives in St. Luke xi. 
29-32 and St. Matthew xii. 39-42, the question naturally 
arises whether the First Evangelist has not mixed up an 
interpretation of his own with the words as originally spoken. 
The text of the two Gospels runs thus :— 


St. Luke xi. 29-32. 
29. Ἢ γενεὰ 


4 - a 
πονηρά ἐστιν" σημεῖον ζητεῖ, καὶ 


αὕτη γενεὰ 


n > Fi i > X\ 
σημεῖον ov δοθήσεται αὐτῇ εἰ μὴ 
τὸ σημεῖον ᾿Ιωνᾶ. 

20. Καθὼς γὰρ ἐγένετο ᾿Ιωνᾶς 
τοῖς Νινευείταις σημεῖον, οὕτως 
Ν \ « rhe “ 2 ΝΜ 
ἔσται καὶ ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου 
a “ ’ 
τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ. 


32. ΓΑνδρες Νινευεῖται ἀνα- 
στήσονται κρίσει μετὰ τῆς γενεᾶς 
καὶ κατακρινοῦσιν αὐτήν ὅτι 
μετενόησαν εἰς τὸ κήρυγμα Ἰωνᾶ, 
καὶ ἰδοὺ πλεῖον Ἰωνᾶ ὧδε. 


St. Matthew xii. 39-41. 


39. Γενεὰ πονηρὰ καὶ pot- 


᾿ “ 5 o \ 
χαλὶς σημεῖον ἐπιζητεῖ, καὶ 
σημεῖον οὐ δοθήσεται αὐτῇ εἰ μὴ 
τὸ σημεῖον ᾿ἸΙωνᾶ τοῦ προφητοῦ. 
40. “Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἣν ᾿Ιωνᾶς ἐν 
τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους τρεῖς 
ε ‘ 
ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας, οὕτως 
Ν ε εν an 5 , 3 
ἔσται ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν 
= , a iS a 2 
Τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς τρεῖς ἡμέρας 
καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας. 
41. ΓΑνδρες Νινευεῖται ἀνα- 
an Ν fod 
στήσονται ἐν TH κρίσει μετὰ τῆς 
γενεᾶς ταύτης καὶ κατακρινοῦσιν 
αὐτήν ὅτι μετενόησαν εἰς τὸ 
, > “ Ne \ al 
κήρυγμα ᾿Ιωνᾶ, καὶ ἰδοὺ πλεῖον 


᾿Ιωνᾶ ὧδε. 


It will be seen that the reference in Matt. xii. 40 to the 


sign of the ‘three days in the whale’s belly’ has nothing to 
correspond to it in St. Luke; and as the whole context turns 
on repentance aroused by preaching and in no way upon the 


Note A. 433 


Resurrection, it is highly probable that the allusion to this is 
a gloss which formed no part of the original saying, but was 
introduced, very naturally though erroneously, by the author 
of our present Gospel. It is true that as the repentance of 
the Ninevites is accepted as historical, the incident of the 
whale would probably have been treated in the same manner ; 
but in neither case was the presence or absence of historical 
foundation essential to the application of the narrative as 
a ‘sign.’ Our Lord’s use of it starts from the way in which it 
was understood by His hearers: behind this He does not go. 

Similarly in St. John x. 34-36, the argument is strictly 
hypothetical and ad hominem. Its object is to show the 
inconsistency of the Jews’ conduct with their own premises, 
and it does not raise the question how far those premises 
were justified. The mode of argument is so peculiar and so 
well suited to the historical situation (it is not an argument 
which would have occurred to a Gentile Christian, or even to 
a Jewish Christian who had no personal knowledge of the 
controversies which gathered round our Lord in His lifetime), 
that we may be sure that something lke it really happened. 
At the same time the memory of this had lain for some sixty 
years in the mind of one who was himself a thorough Jew, 
and we cannot be equally certain that it came out precisely as 
it went in. 


Ff 


᾿ν 


ν ΤΟΥ, 


ν᾽ 


ἣν es 4H it Pent ant ie hh 


ΡΩΝ DEX SI 


SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OxForD, 


October 21, 1894. 


‘And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a 
God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and 
truth ; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin: 
and that will by no means clear the guilty.—Zxodus xxxiv. 6, 7, R.V. 

Wuatever the date of this section of the Pentateuch, it is in any 
case most remarkable. Critics generally refer it to one or other of 
the oldest documents. If it cannot be identified as belonging to either 
of them singly, it belongs at least to the edition in which they were 
combined. That would make it, on a reasonable view, older than 
Amos, older we may say than the beginning of the eighth century B.c.: 
how much older we cannot tell. Really a hundred years more or 
less makes. little difference in principle. Whether the words were 
written down nine centuries before Christ or eight—we might take 
extreme probabilities and say, whether they were written ten centuries 
or seven—in any case they stand out as a salient fact in the history 
of religion. They testify to an astonishing loftiness of conception, 
to which, before we come to the writing Prophets, we may search 
in vain for a parallel. 

No doubt the summit is not yet quite reached. I stopped, as may 
have been observed, a little short of the end of the second verse, which 
adds ‘ visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon 
the children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.’ 
This was a part of the stern belief of ancient Israel. It has indeed its 
melancholy truth. The evil that men do very often does not die with 
them: its consequences are felt, and its punishment is felt, far down 
the line of their descendants. And yet it is an advance in religious 
teaching when we come to Ezekiel, and when we have the clear 
affirmation of individual responsibility. ‘The soul that sinneth it shall 
die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the 
father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous 


Ff2 


436 Sermon preached before the 


shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
him’ (Ezek. xviii. 20). Such is the way in which one religious truth 
is made the stepping-stone to another deeper or truer truth. The 
world could not learn its lesson all at once. 

Yet the essence of the matter was there in the Book of Exodus. 
It is laid down as emphatically as words can speak that God is at 
once infinitely righteous and infinitely merciful—the adverb ‘ infinitely’ 
is not used, but in the simple speech of those days its equivalent is 
intended. The righteousness and the mercy of God soar away far 
beyond the writer’s power of measurement and description. He is 
at once ‘just and justifier’ (Rom. iii. 26), ‘righteous and pronouncing 
righteous’ by an act of free magnanimous amnesty for sin. The most 
advanced teaching of St. Paul is only a development of this great 
announcement. Still more is the teaching of Ezekiel only a development 
of it. The first thing was to get a firm hold on those two fundamental 
principles, that God is infinitely righteous and infinitely merciful. 
How exactly this righteousness and this mercy might express them- 
selves was a matter of detail. Definitions more exact, more nicely 
true to fact, would come in time. 

But what other ancient people in the ninth or the eighth century B.c. 
had such an intense hold on those two propositions? What ancient 
prophet or seer outside Israel lifted up his voice to proclaim them 
with such thrilling accents? If it was not Moses himself, yet the 
prophet who spoke for Moses spoke from his heart and put a weight 
of meaning into his words. He evidently was not one who thought 
lightly of sin. The Greeks were a noble race. They had a delight 
in virtue and a scorn of baseness. They had in their best repre- 
sentatives a dim and awful sense that there were actions which gave 
offence to the Powers above and called down a terrible and slowly 
working vengeance. But those who thought on these grave problems 
were almost overpowered by their mystery. Not even the best of the 
Greeks, centuries later, at the height of their culture and refinement, 
could have formulated his belief in language so earnest yet so simple, 
so adequate to the mighty truths with which it was charged. 

We ask ourselves, How did Israel get this wonderful insight ? Was 
there anything in its circumstances which would naturally lead it to 
realize more than other peoples realized the infinite righteousness and 
the infinite forgiving love of God? For Israel God was emphatically 
a Person, and a Person in whom these attributes stood out beyond 
all others. And what is so striking is that Israel held fast to this belief 
all through its history. It took some time to burnit into its soul ; but 


University of Oxford. 437 


once there, the characters provedindelible. There was a good deal of 
wavering at first, for in the days of its discipline Israel was a stiff-necked 
people. It was some time in learning; but it had also a certain 
tenacity, which when once its lesson was learnt filted it to be a witness 
for God in the world. 

And well indeed that it was so. For was there ever a nation which 
was so sorely tried? We can imagine a nation laying stress on the 
mercy and love of God as it sate at ease under its vines and under 
its fig-trees, contemplating the heavens the work of His hands and 
the wonderful things which He had done for the children of men, 
There was no nation which had such a wistful appreciation of the 
blessings of prosperity and peace. But how small a time had Israel 
for the enjoyment of these! How shortlived were its experiences of 
good fortune, how long and how bitter was its experience of the 
reverse! We in these days, in the midst of physical comforts in which 
there is not a class that does not share, yet have pessimists enough 
in our midst. Even among the leaders in literature and thought, there 
is plenty of pessimism. Yet turn from the state of things now, and 
look back at the social condition of the weak and poor in antiquity 
generally, and especially in a feeble and insignificant little nation which 
had all that it could do in simply maintaining its independence for 
some few centuries. Think of the horrors of war in those days; the 
fearful cruelties that were practised almost as a matter of course, as 
one may see them for instance on the Assyrian sculptures; think 
of the constant oppression of the weak by the strong; the con- 
spicuous instances of triumphant tyranny; the trampling down of all 
law and right, now by the foreigner, now by those born in the land. 
When we try to picture to ourselves the actual condition of Israel 
in the successive periods of their history, I think we shall be very 
deeply impressed with the fact that they of all peoples had such an 
extraordinary faith in the goodness, the justice, the lovingkindness 
of God. 

Bishop Butler looks at human society, and he sees in the principles 
of human government a reflection, imperfect but yet real, of the moral 
government of God. ‘That was at an advanced stage of what we call 
civilization, and after more than seventeen centuries of Christianity. 
But let us put ourselves in the position of an Israelite in the reign 
of Omri or Ahab or Manasseh. Was it, do we think, an easy matter 
for such an one, simply by looking around him, to infer the attributes 
of God from what he saw? Is it what we should expect, that he should 
not only infer them, but speak of them with such boundless confidence 


438 Sermon preached before the 


and enthusiasm ? that he should hold fast to them through evil repors 
and good report, with Jerusalem in ruins and her children dashed 
against the stones or scattered throughout all lands? 

The more we look at it, the more, I think, we shall see that the 
fervent utterances of historian and prophet and psalmist were not, and 
could not possibly be, the product of an induction. We may rest 
assured that no Israelite could ever have arrived at a conception of God 
like that in the text simply by contemplating the world around him. 
And as a matter of fact, when prophet and psalmist do look out into. 
the world and set down what they see, the language which they use is 
quite different: ‘ The earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations” 
(Ps. Ixxiv. 21, P.B.). ‘Destruction and misery are in their ways, and 
the way of peace have they not known’ (Rom. iii. 16, 17, from 
Isa. lix. 7, 8). 

No doubt upon the whole, and especially within the last century, 
there has been a real amelioration of social conditions. The number 
of those who have reason to ‘ praise the Lord for His goodness’ has 
greatly increased. When every deduction has been made, there is 
still a vast total of happiness in the world, and a vast total also of 
purely artificial misery, of misery which those who suffer from it have 
brought almost wholly upon themselves. Still, along with this improve- 
ment there has gone a widely extended knowledge. We know far 
more than we did about the workings of nature and the life-history 
of other creatures beside man. And it is very questionable whether 
the philosopher, sitting down to draw an absolutely dispassionate picture 
of the universe, could say, reasoning from that alone, that the Author 
of All was good, without reserve or qualification. 

We know how throughout the last century the basis of nearly all 
speculation on the origin of things was a cheerful optimism—such as 
we see expressed in Addison’s Hymn, and the Zssay on Afan. Even 
the opponents of Christianity did not oppose it because they were 
oppressed and overpowered by the darker problems of the world and 
of man. They too fell back on the same cheerful optimism which 
sketched for them the outline of a simple and unmysterious creed which 
they called ‘ Natural Religion.’ 

Those days are gone, and are not likely to return. Even before the 
publication of Zhe Origin of Species, with its revelations of struggle and 
conflict stretching far back beyond the beginning of any recorded 
history, and running through the whole animate creation—even before 
this there were writers like John Stuart Mill, who, on the strengt 
of mere ordinary observation, had questioned the belief in the pure 


University of Oxford. 439 


beneficence of the Author of Nature. For that matter such questioning 
was of course no new thing. It had been expressed centuries ago in 
winged words by Lucretius. And even the Christian could not be 
surprised at this. It has always been a part of his own belief that 
there was at work in the world a Power of Evil as well as a Power 
of Good. If he had not been told it, there are numbers of phenomena 
which require some such explanation. And therefore the Christian 
could least of all feel surprise if the philosopher who, apart from 
revelation, undertook to reason upwards from the character of the 
created world to the character of the Creator, ended by positing a Being, 
either of limited power or of limited goodness. It is difficult to see 
how an inquiry conducted in this way could result in anything else. 
The only alternative seems to be to throw over the indications of 
conscious Mind or Will altogether, and to say either that the world 
has no Intelligent Cause, or that, if it has, we can form no consistent 
idea of His attributes. 

The conclusion to which we come is that the world in our own 
day, in spite of advance in many directions, is really no better situated 
than Israel of old for forming a conception of God which shall satisfy 
the aspirations of the conscience. No amount of searching by the very 
wisest of men, provided that it trusted only to the resources of our 
common humanity, ever could or ever can arrive at an inspiring belief 
like that which was reached wellnigh thirty centuries ago by a people 
of little culture and little power, a people which had but one great gift, 
the gift of Religion. ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion 
and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping 
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and 
that will by no means clear the guilty.” What a beacon-light for the 
nations have we there ! 

But again we ask, How was ever such a beacon kindled? Can it be 
a real light at all? Or is it not a mere flickering reflection thrown out 
upon the mists to delude the gaze of those who would fain be guided 
by it? I will take this second point first. 

It would be a very natural objection, based upon the course of the 
argument hitherto, to say: Supposing it to be true that no regular 
process of induction can give us a result like this which we find stated 
in the Book of Exodus, what guarantee have we that it is true? Is not 
that fact alone sufficient to cast doubt upon it, and indeed to disprove 
it altogether? It would be so, if there were no other processes of 
thought but strict induction. There are two lines of Wordsworth’s 
Poet's Epitath which often run in my mind, and seem to me to describe 


440 Sermon. preached before the 


a number of processes besides that to which they are applied. ‘And 
you must love him,’ it is said of the poet— 


‘And you must love him, ere to you 
He will seem worthy of your love.’ 


How many things are there which must be loved first before they can 
be properly understood? How many propositions are there which we 
must begin by accepting as true, begin by acting upon and testing and 
applying steadily to practice, before we can form any idea of the amount 
of real evidence there is for them? There is an anticipatory action in 
the human mind which sometimes forms its propositions first and proves 
them afterwards, and which could not prove them in any other way. 
In the strict terminology of logic we should call such propositions 
hypotheses. ‘They are assumed provisionally, in order to be tested by 
degrees as to whether they can be received as part of the permanent 
stock of the mind ornot. In the language of logic and formal reason- 
ing we should have to call these propositions in the Book of Exodus 
hypotheses. 

But in tone nothing could be less like what we commonly associate 
with the idea of ‘ hypothesis.’ Usually hypothesis is tentative, and is 
conscious of being tentative. The language of the Book of Exodus 
is very different from this. It is indeed characteristic of the Bible as 
a whole. There are regions of exploration in it where the mind seems 
to be groping its way in the twilight; but this is not one of them. 
The great leading propositions of Old Testament religion are not put 
forward tentatively. ‘They take the shape nearly always of dogmatic 
indicatives and categorical imperatives. There is no verb at all in the 
two verses which I have quoted. They are simply an enlarged ‘ Name’ 
in the pregnant Biblical use of the word ‘Name.’ _ We could imagine 
them inscribed upon the rocks of Sinai in letters of light for the assem- 
bled people to behold, and once beheld to take into their minds and 
never let them go again. ὃ 

Shall we be wrong if we call this process ‘revelation’? Shall we 
be wrong if we say that the writer of the Book of Exodus, or of the 
document which we have incorporated in the Book of Exodus, was 
‘inspired’ to write it? that he wrote it in obedience to a prompting 
from the Spirit of God? ‘That is the account which the Old Testa- 
ment generally gives of itself. All these categorical statements about 
the Being and Attributes of God and His dealings with men, the 
prophets and holy men, who first spoke and then wrote, or who wrote 
without speaking, the Books of the Old Testament, ascribed to the 


University of Oxford. 141 


direct action of God Himself. ‘God said,’ ‘the Word of the Lord 
came to me’ are the regular formulae which they use. Sometimes 
these formulae are expanded figuratively (as in Isaiah vi), but their 
significance is the same. It runs through the whole Bible, the New 
Testament no less than the Old. Wherever there is deliberate 
teaching, the teacher is evidently conscious of speaking with authority. 
His words are not his own but the Word of God. 

But is not all this a rather crude mode of presentation? [5 it not 
just an instance of the supposition common among the ancients, that 
the Divinity said through a man what he felt strongly moved to say? 
That is our rationalistic way of describing such things. But are we 
sure that our rationalism is right, and that the ancient way of 
speaking—especially the Hebrew way of speaking, for the culminating 
phenomena are those of Hebrew prophecy—was not after all the more 
correct of the two? It is not as if the Hebrews had not strong 
emotions, and did not often express strongly what they felt as men. 
Of course they did this. But they distinguish where we do not 
distinguish. A large proportion of their utterances they would have 
described as we do, but just this one group they set apart; just this 
one group they describe as not arising spontaneously in their own 
mind, but as put there by God. 

May we not take them at their word? Is it not true that this group 
of utterances has a distinctive and coherent character of its own? 
Different things ought to bear different names, and it is natural to 
assign them to different causes. 

The whole course of the argument which we have drawn from an 
analysis of the contents of a particular typical utterance seems to make 
in favour of the account which the Old Testament writers would 
themselves give of this and others like it. We have seen how difficult 
it is to explain them by any of the ordinary processes of human 
thought. We have seen that they are just as remarkable now as they 
were when they were first uttered. When they were first uttered it 
seems impossible to recombine the elements of thought which led up 
to them. It seems hopeless to reconstruct the ladder by which the 
-human spirit climbed up to heaven and brought them down. In other 
words, if these truths had not been revealed, if God had not willed 
that they should be known and caused them to be known, there is no 
seeing how they should ever have been reached at all. The Sacred 
Writers themselves utterly disclaim any of the merit of discovery. 
The truths which they preach did not come to them by any human 
effort or ‘taking thought.’ The struggles whicn we see in the minds 


442 Sermon preached before the 


of prophets and wise men were not of that kind. The experience of 
these men was to us and with reference to our standards a unique 
experience ; and it seems to deserve a unique name. 

In giving it this unique name we are doing more than merely 
cloaking our ignorance. There is, it is true enough, a tendency to 
refer to God what we cannot explain by the ordinary capacities of 
man. And there might be some prima facie ground for treating the 
case before us as an instance of the kind. But there is really far more 
in it than this, 

We speak of ‘Inspiration’ and ‘ Revelation,’ and we allow the claim 
of the prophets and other holy men of Israel to have spoken by 
Divine authority, because we believe that that is on the whole the 
most reasonable account to give. It is not an isolated fact, but has 
its place among a number of other facts. The ultimate question is. 
that so admirably discussed in the Bampton Lectures for this year. — 
Do we believe in a Personal God, a living, conscious, thinking, acting 
Being? If we do, let us be in earnest with that belief. Do not let us 
give it with one hand and take it back with the other. But when once 
we start from the belief in a really living, a really personal God, the 
further step to belief in a Revelation becomes not only easy but 
natural. If the Being who made the earth and sky is like us in these 
respects—and we cannot conceive of Him otherwise; whatever He 
may be to conceiving powers differently constituted; whatever He 
may be for instance to the inhabitants of another planet,—we can 
only think of Him as we think of ourselves. We have only one type 
of creative and regulative action, the type supplied by human intelli- 
gence and will. We see around us a vast network of causation, 
operating backwards for untold ages, and destined to operate forwards 
for periods at which it is vain to conjecture. We are not competent 
even to guess at the end of all this wondrous activity. We go beyond 
our warrant if we attempt to determine, not the distant but even the 
proximate end of that which comes most nearly under our observation, 
The infinitely complex machinery of life and force around us may 
subserve purposes far more intricate than any that we can imagine. 
It is enough for us that there 7s a machinery. It is enough for us that 
there are purposes, with a name or without it. It is as if one should 
come across a torn and tattered shred of some abstruse mathematical 
calculation. From the two or three lines before us we might be 
wholly incapable of guessing what was the problem which the calcu- 
lator had before him. We might be utterly in the dark as to its 
beginning, no less than as to its end. Still, from the mere fact that 


University of Oxford. 443 


there were figures, and that those figures stood in intelligible relation 
to each other, we could tell that there was a problem, and that the 
fragment which lay before us was on the line of progress towards its 
solution. So is it with the universe. The mere fact that there is 
a multitude of objects to which we can give names, and that these 
objects stand in a more or less constant relation to each other, is 
enough to show that there is some sort of purpose, some sort of plan. 
And where there is purpose there is Will, and where there is plan there 
is Mind. Whatever else we cannot say, we can at least say that Will 
and Mind are at the centre of existence—a Will and a Mind of which 
it is natural to us to conceive as like our own. Whether it is in itself 
like or not, for purposes of human thought we must treat it as if it 
were like. It is in the shape of Mind or Will that it takes its place in 
the system of intelligible things. - 

But to speak of Mind and Will is to speak of a Person. And where 
there are these, there is also, so far as our experience goes, the power 
to communicate with other persons and the impulse to communicate 
with them. So that when we are told that God has held communica- 
tion with man, it is wholly in accord with analogy that He should do 
so. Nor is it inappropriate that He should communicate with them 
in the particular mode which we are given to understand that He has. 
chosen, viz. by acting upon the minds of select individuals. This too 
must be taken in conjunction with the phenomena of religion generally. 
If we have any reason to think that there is a Spirit-world without us 
which acts upon our spirits—and it is difficult to explain the great 
mass of religious experience in any other way—then such an inspira- 
tion as was claimed for the prophets and their fellows has about it 
nothing really abnormal, nothing that is not in keeping with the whole 
class of phenomena to which it belongs. 

It is important to emphasize this point, because more and more 
there are disengaging themselves two main lines of opinion among 
those who permit themselves to speculate on these subjects. The old 
aggressive temper is dying out. Christianity is no longer made 
responsible for most of the evils in the world, and loaded with 
denunciation. On the contrary, there is now among the repre- 
sentatives of modern thought a great amount of generous appreciation. 
Prophets, Psalmists, Apostles, are all warmly eulogized. The work 
which they did in raising the level of human conceptions is freely 
acknowledged. It is allowed that there is a God, and that they were 
among the very best of His servants. It may even be allowed that in 
some sense a Divine influence has been at work upon them. But this. 


444 Sermon preached before the 


influence is held to be inseparable from the expression given to it by 
the human mind. For all practical purposes it is identified with that 
expression. The teaching of Prophets, Psalmists, and Apostles is 
regarded as their teaching and nothing more. The whole religion of 
Israel is treated as if it were self-evolved. The common Christian 
view of a direct distinguishable action of the Divine Spirit upon the 
human spirit is denied, and even described as a ‘ psychological im- 
possibility.’ There is one word which this line of reasoning will not 
tolerate on any terms; that is the word ‘ supernatural.’ 

Let us admit that there is a certain amount of excuse for this 
intolerance in the fact that the word ‘supernatural’ is sometimes 
crudely applied. It is sometimes used as if all that is called—and as 
we believe rightly called—‘supernatural’ was directly ‘ against nature,’ 
and not merely a ‘higher kind of nature. ‘The supernatural’ is 
treated as if it were the same thing as ‘the irregular.’ The action of 
God is likened to the spasmodic incalculable action of a capricious 
man. Is it necessary to repudiate any such comparison? The 
believer in a real Divine revelation does not for a moment doubt that 
God acts everywhere and in all things strictly in accordance with the 
laws of His Being. But it is assuming far more than we are justified 
in assuming to suppose that we know the whole of those laws, and to 
treat them as co-extensive with just that part of our experience which 
happens to be most tangible and measureable. We have another kind 
of experience besides this. And that other experience prepares us for 
the possibility at every turn of a higher law striking in upon and 
modifying a lower. The most mysterious of all the causes of which 
we have any knowledge is the human will. We see it at every 
moment crossing, suspending, and diverting the course of the lower 
physical laws with which it comes in contact. And yet we believe 
that it too has its laws which we can partly, but only partly, discover. 

Still more wonderful than the action of the individual will in itself is 
the action of the individual will under the influence of other wills, The 
communicating of thought, the excitement of feeling, the impressing 
of character by one human being in contact with another—what 
marvels are these? The influence of the Divine Spirit upon the 
human is a like marvel, but one for which we are prepared by these 
analogies. ‘Thou art about my path and about my bed, and spiest 
out all my ways. Surely that is a fundamental truth to which 
religious minds in all ages would testify. But if we are thus sur- 
rounded by the Spirit of God; if in It we veritably live and move and 
have our being; and if, like all other spiritual influences, this too has 


University of Oxford. 445 


relatively to us its less and more—what is there in the least abnormal 
in supposing that there have been minds in the past more powerfully, 
more profoundly, more vitally and effectually touched than others, and 
that we have the written expression of the working of these minds in 
the Bible? 

When it comes to be a question of psychological analysis, no doubt 
the distinction of subjective and objective is a difficult thing. Still, we 
can as a rule tell in a rough and rude way what is our own and what 
we owe to others. And if ever there was a case in which there was 
clearness of conviction on this head, it was in the case of the Prophets 
and Apostles. They knew perfectly well, and they make the distinction 
perfectly clear, when they are speaking their own thoughts, and when 
they are speaking thoughts and delivering a message which is not 
their own. 

The modern view, or what it would be more right to call the 
extreme modern view, ignores all this. It begins by throwing over 
the whole account which the Prophets and Apostles give of them- 
selves. It is, as I have said, warm and generous in its panegyrics. 
But then it forgets, or at least puts aside as if it were irrelevant, the 
fact that the Prophets and Apostles themselves are as far as possible 
from courting such panegyrics. Their whole occupation would have 
been gone; they would have ceased to be Prophets and Apostles if 
they had had any consciousness of deserving them. Imagine Isaiah 
or Jeremiah confronted by some of our modern critics and addressed 
by them in the terms of their criticism; would they not receive the 
compliments with which they were loaded with a look of blank 
amazement? Would they not be utterly at a loss to know what was 
meant? Yes, and in those few cases—I am thankful to say in the 
English language very few—in which the critic has ventured to mix 
patronizing with his praises, would they not turn upon him with 
indignant scorn? ‘What hast thou, O man, which thou didst not 
receive? But if thou didst receive it, why dost thou boast as if thou 
hadst not received it?’ (Cf. 1 Cor. iv. 7.) 

The legitimate consequence of the denial of Inspiration is the denial 
of all spiritual influence of God upon man; and the next step is the 
denial of any true Personality in God Himself. Where Inspiration 
is denied or minimized to the extent to which we sometimes see it 
minimized, we may be almost sure that the cause lies in a defective 
conception of God. There are some moderns, nay even some theo- 
logians, whose god is but the present-day counterpart of the gods of 
Epicurus, sitting beside their nectar and unconcerned with the affairs 


446 Sermon preached before the University of Oxford. 


of men. So straitly is He confined in the trammels of what are 
conceived to be His own laws, that He is practically lost in them, and 
men are left with no true Father and no true Redeemer at all. 

The view of the universe with which this conception goes, not only 
minimizes Inspiration, it minimizes an immense number of other 
things; indeed all the phenomena of spiritual existence and spiritual 
life as well. These are the two great divisions of opinion of which 
I spoke. One reduces everything, so to speak, to a lower plane; the 
other can take the phenomena on the plane on which they naturally 
present themselves. It runs no risk of not doing justice to the facts. 
It is not haunted by the suspicion of omitting the very element which 
is most essential to the question. It can explain without explaining 
away. It does not profess to accept or respect Biblical Revelation 
while denying or cutting down to nothing the root principle of that 
revelation, the major premiss that God has in a real and true sense 
revealed Himself to man. 

When once we believe this, we have no difficulty in finding a place 
for sublime utterances like those in the text. They may not be self- 
evident. There may be facts which they do not obviously cover. 
There may be difficulties which they do not wholly solve. Every 
conceivable theory of the universe—even the blankest Agnosticism, 
which is a mere confession of failure—has its difficulties: difficulties 
as we think far greater than the Christian. But the difficulties which 
remain on the Christian theory are just of a kind which is powerless to 
prove its negation. If it were a product of induction, then a seeming 
defect in the induction might impair it. If it professed to be based on 
a survey of experience, then some new discovery might contradict it. 
But, as it is, it goes before all experience. It professes to be based— 
and we believe it to be based—on the warrant of God Himself. And 
holding firmly to that belief, we find from day to day that more and 
more of our own experience harmonizes with it. It is verified by 
a process which is not antecedent but consequent. It gives a unity 
to life, a unity to thought, a unity to action, which nothing else can 
give. In this fallible and shadowy world of ours, that is the best 
verification we can have. It is a verification which comes from the 
most varied and opposite quarters. The philosopher contributes to 
it by speculation, the explorer by discovery, the scholar by research, 
and most of all, the humble Christian by his life. ‘Out of the mouth 
of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.’ 


ΟΝ ΝΟ ΤΙ 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF DATA FOR THE HISTORY 
OF THE CANON. 


In constructing the following tables my chief object has been to 
bring out the fixed points, or those which may be taken as relatively 
fixed, in the history of the Canon—the pivots, so to speak, on which 
other points must turn. I have therefore not hesitated simply to ab- 
stain from any attempt to indicate the position of certain books (such 
as the Song of Songs, or Jonah) where I did not feel that I had an 
opinion which was sufficiently well founded to be worth expressing. 
The whole of this book, so far as it deals with the Old Testament, 
aims at representing only so much of the conclusions of criticism as 
the writer feels that he can honestly and fairly assimilate. There is 
much on which he waits for further light which must come through 
the discussions of those who are specially equipped for the study and 
who can speak with greater authority. 

The chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah is taken from 
Kittel, Gesch. d. Hebréer, ii. 200-206, which in its turn is based upon 
a monograph by Kamphausen, Die Chronologie d. Hebr. Konige, Bonn, 
1883. There are several points in the dating of the early Christian 
writings which must be taken as provisional. In particular the group 
Barnabas—Drdaché—Hermas has not, I think, as yet had its place 
finally determined. ‘The date assigned to Barnabas is Bishop Light- 
foot’s, which seems to me to satisfy best the conditions of §iv. But to 
obtain so early a date as this we must assume that Barnabas makes 
use of an earlier Jewish document, the ‘Two Ways,’ and not of the 
Didaché. ‘Then comes in the difficulty of the coincidence of Ded. xvi. 2 
with Barn. iv. 9, in regard to which I can see no other way than to 
suppose with Mr. Vernon Bartlet, in a paper recently read in Oxford, 
that the subject of this section also belonged to the ‘Two Ways.’ 
But this supposition too is not without its difficulties. I must also 
confess to not being clear as to the date commonly assigned to 
Hermas. It has not been thought worth while to pursue the traces of use 
of New Testament Books beyond Origen; and the lists which are given 
for the fourth century are only a selection ; others are easily accessible. 


448 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL HisrTory. 
B.C. 
Tell-el-Amarna tablets : : : ‘ : 15th cent. 


The Exodus « (6 2agon 


Saul - 1037-1017 
David. ¢« IO17—-977 
Solomon . A 


o Nish) ΘΠ ΘΠ 


Kings of Israel. Kings of Judah. 
B.C. B.C. 


JeroboamI. . . . 937-915 Rehoboam . . . 937-920 
[Invasion of Shishak, 932.] 


Nadab/ 3s <2) a ΙΓ ΟΠ Abijam’. . ὁ ὁ ὦ ὈΖΌΞΟΣ 
ῬΆΔΒΠΟ, τις Ὁ τ: 011-905 Asa. « + -w 4%.) ΘΑ 
Plane. es) joe ot 8005 580 
PAGED Oar teeta 889 
QUIT 6 sy 0k ih gis POCO ROT 


Ahab. Ἐν “eter Sa7—-855 Jehoshaphat . . . 876-851 


Ahaziah. .:. . ¢ “8p5-854 Joram . . . 2°. ΔΕΞῚ 
Jehoram. . . . . 854-842 Ahaziah 4... «\« 845 12 


[Battle of Karkar (Ahab and Benhadad II or Hadadezer of Syria, 
with other allied kings, defeated by Shalmaneser 11; Assyrian 
power advancing westwards), 854. | 


[The Moabite Stone, ¢. 850.] 


Jor the History of the Canon. 449 


HIsTory OF THE CANON. 
B.C. 


Indeterminate element in the Pentateuch derived from 
Moses, but if committed to writing probably not pre- 
served exactly in its original form. 

Song of Deborah. 


David’s Elegy (2 Sam. i. 19-27), and possibly some Psalms 
not to be certainly identified. 


The Book of the Wars of the Lord. 
The Book of Jasher. 


Historical material relating to the period of the Judges, 
Samuel, Saul, and David. 

From this time historical records become fairly con- 
tinuous. 


The Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx. 23—xxiii. 33). 


450 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL History. 


Kings of Lsrael. 


Kings of Judah. 


8.6. B.C. 
JENW. te ewes Mose—ors Athaliah 842-836 
Jehoahaz 814-797 Joash 836-796 
Jehoash . 797-781 Amaziah : 796-78? 
Jeroboam II 781-740 Azariah (Uzziah) . 78 ?-737 
[Israel hard pressed by Hazael and Benhadad III of 
Syria under Jehu and Jehoahaz, but reaches the height 
of its prosperity under Jeroboam II.] 
Wapiania’ oes ὦ Peete 740 Jotham (sole ruler) . 737-735 
ΞΒΑΠ τ Sods Ged aise 740 
Menahem 740-737 
Pekahiah 737-735 
Pekah 135-733 sallnev 135-715 
Hoshea . 933-725 
Syro-Ephraimite War . Ε . 735-734 
Tiglath-Pileser III (= Pul) . ὃ . 745-727 
Shalmaneser IV . 727-722 
Fall of Damascus "32 
Fall of Samaria . : : 4 422 
Hezekiah . 715-686 
Manasseh . 686-641 
Amon 641-639 
Kings of Egypt. Kings of Assyria. 
(Dynasty XXV, Ethiopian.) 
Sabaco 728-717 Sargon . 722-705 
Sabataka 717-705 Sennacherib 705-681 
Tirhaka . 704-664 Esarhaddon . 681-669 
(Ebers 694-668) Assurbanipal (Sarda- 
napalus). . . . 669-625 


Jor the History of the Canon. 


History OF THE CANON. 


The historical works of the Jehovist (Southern kingdom) 
and Elohist (Northern kingdom), afterwards incor- 
porated in the Pentateuch, are earlier, and may be 
considerably earlier, than 760. 

[Some place the prophecy of Obadiah 848-844, and that 
of Joel 834-817 B.c.] 


Prophecies of Amos 
Prophecies of Hosea 
[These prophecies imply τ ποῖ the actual Ww ores τ the 
Jehovist and Elohist at least a conception of the history 
similar to theirs, and a long previous religious develop- 
ment. | 


Prophecies of Isaiah 
. [Is. xv, xvi are thought to be τς cian Isaiah, perhaps 
older even than Amos, ¢. 780; it is probable that other 
portions of Is. i-xxxix do not belong to Isaiah. | 


Prophecies of Micah. 
[ Younger contemp. of Isaiah; capp. vi, vii perhaps later, 
under Manasseh. | 
The ‘Men of Hezekiah’ make a small collection of 
Proverbs (Prov, xxv. I). 


QD 
σα 
re) 


451 


B.C. 


c. 760 
c. 740 


-737-€. 700 


453 


Chronological Table of Data 


Events in GENERAL History. 


Merodach-Baladan, King of Babylon 721-710, and at 


intervals till 


Sabaco and Hanno of Gaza defeated at "Rachia 

Great campaign of Sennacherib, defeat of Tirhaka at 
Altaku and destruction of Sennacherib’s army 

Invasion of Egypt by Esarhaddon and capture a: 


Memphis 


Invasion by Assurbanipal and ΤῊΣ of Thebes : 
Egypt mainly in Assyrian possession 


Kings of Egypt. 
(Dynasty XXVI.) 


Psammetichus I 663-610 
Necho II 610-595 
Psammetichus I] . 595-588 
Hophra (Apries) . 588-569 
Amasis (usurper) . 569-525 


B.C, 


c. 694 
720 


ἼΟΙ 
671 


662 
671-050 


Kings of Judah. 


Josiah> 7 ἄπ 


Jehoahaz ; 9 τς 
Jehoiakim . 
Jehoiachin . 
Zedekiah 


Kings of Babylon. 


Nabopolassar . 
Nebuchadnezzar . 


Evil-Merodach 
Neriglissar . 


Nabonidus. 


Inroads of the Scythians (checked by Alyattes, King of 


Lydia, 617) and break-up of Assyrian power. . 
Destruction of Nineveh by Medes and Babylonians - 
Battle οἵ Megiddo and death of Josiah . : : Ξ 


Battle of Carchemish and defeat of Necho 
Taking of Jerusalem and first deportation 
Second siege and destruction of Jerusalem and save 


deportation 


639-608 


608 
608-597 
597 
597-586 


625-604 
604-561 


561-560 
560-556 


Jor the Πιοίογν of the Canon. 453 


History OF THE CANon. 


B.C. 
Prophecy of Nahum : : : : : : c. 624 
Prophecy of Zephaniah, ἜΝ ; : : : 621 
Promulgation of main part of Rater ent - - 621 
[The influence of this book is strongly ἘΝ in the 
succeeding literature, prophetic and historical: see 
p. 242 f.] 
Prophecy of Habakkuk . : : Σ ᾿ ‘ : c. 608 
Prophecies +f Jeremiah . : : : 5 .6247-c. 580 
[Jeremiah’s prophecies are none of en committed to 
writing until 604. | 
Substantial completion of Books of Kings (Cornill) . - ς. 600 


Prophecies of Ezekiel . : : ; - : . 592-572 


Isaiah χ]--ἰχνὶ (if, or so far as, by the same hand). . 546-538 


454 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL HIsTory. 


Persian Period. 


Cyrus, King of Medes Artaxerxes I (Longi- 
and Persians . . 550-530 manus) . 
Cyrus, King of Baby- Xerxes il \ 
lomia” sys oe 999 Sogdianos 
Cambyses* .” 2) 08 i 1925 Darius 11 
Pseudo-Smerdis . . 522-521 Artaxerxes II (Mne- 
Darius I (Hy ge 521-486 mon) 
EGRESS eer . 486-465 Artaxer ἘΠῚ 


Darius Codomannus. 


Defeat of Croesus and conquest of Lydia 


Decree of Cyrus . : : : : : : - 
First return of the Jews : ‘ : : Ξ 
Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses . : : : 3 


Rebuilding of the Temple 
Battle of Marathon 


Invasion of Greece by Xerxes 

Mission of Ezra . : ας : : eine 
Nehemiah appointed governor. : : : . 
Nehemiah’s second visit to Jerusalem. : : . 
Peloponnesian War. : : : . : 3 
Battle οἵ Chaeroneia_ . : : : . . 
Accession of Alexander : : . 

[Beginning of Samaritan schism soon aoe ae 

Jaddua, high priest. : : : : . 


Greek Period. 
Alexander the Great : : δ 
Battle of Ipsus (defeat of ΓΗ arid Demetrius s) 
| Palestine falls to Egypt 
Palestine falls to Seleucidae . 
Syria to Seleucidae  . : : ° 
N.B.—Seleucid era ΕΣ con ara. 


B.C. 


465-425 
425 
424-494 


404-361 
361-336 
336-330 
546 

5391 

536 

525 
520-516 
400 
480-479 
458 

445 

432 
431-404 
38 

336 


351-33% 


33°-343 

301 
301-198 
198-167 
301-64 | 


Jor the Hrstory of the Canon. 


History OF THE CANON. 
Book of Job? 


Prophecies of Haggai. : : - : ° 
Zechariah i-viit : : : : - 
[Implies portions of both parts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and 
Ezekiel. | 
Malachi, shortly before 458 (Cornill) or 432 (Driver). 
Promulgation of the Pentateuch by Ezra and Nehemiah . 
[ Must there not be some interval between the composition 
and the promulgation of this work? It was composed 
as a Hexateuch, published as Law, z.e. as Pentateuch. | 


Canon of the Law. 


The Memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah are the foundation of 
the present books, which date from about B.c. 300 
(see below). 


Many of the Psalms were probably composed at this 
period. 


Final collection and arrangement of the Book of Proverbs 
perhaps also about this time. 

If the Book of Jonah belongs to this date it contains 
reminiscences of a number of Psalms. 


Chronicles : Ἴ : : : 

[ Note that Chronicles was originally one work with Ezra 
and Nehemiah, so that a distinct stage in the history 
of these books is marked by their separation, as in the 
Jewish Canon. ‘This was accomplished by B.c. 180. 

Note also that Chronicles implies some of the later Psalms: 
e.g. 1 Chron. xvi. 7-36 works up parts of Pss. cv. 
I-15, ΧΟΥΪ. I-13, cvi. 1, 47, 48, and 2 Chron. vi. 41, 42 
works up parts of Ps. cxxxii (cf Driver, /utrod. p. 361). 

It has been inferred, and the inference denied, that the 
doxology in 1 Chron. xvi. 36 (= Ps. cvi. 48) proves 


455 


444 


c. 300 


456 


Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL History. 


Kings of Syria. 


Seleucus I (Nicator) . 

Antiochus I (Soter) . 

Antiochus II (Theos) 

Seleucus 11 (Callinicus) 

Seleucus III nae 
nus) 

Antiochus the Cree 


306-281 
281-261 
261-246 
246-226 


226-222 
222-187 


B:C. 


Kings of Egypt. 


Ptolemy I (Soter) 

Ptolemy II (Phila- 
delphus). : 

Ptolemy III (Euer- 


Peles) | ian ee 
Ptolemy IV (Philo- 
pator) Sets 
Ptolemy V_ (Epi- 
phanes) . : 


Battle of Raphia (defeat of Antiochus by Ptolemy IV, 
who retains Palestine) . 

Conquest of Coele-Syria and palesune bi Aneochie 

Battle of Magnesia (defeat of Antiochus by the Romans) 


Succession of Jewish High-Priests. 
Onias I (¢emp. Ptolemy I). 


Simon I (the Just). 


Eleazar, brother of Simon (μη. Ptolemy II). 
Manasseh, uncle of Eleazar. 
Onias II, son of Simon I (/emp. Ptolemy III). 
Simon 11, son of Onias II. 
Onias ITI, son of Simon II (¢emp. Seleucus IV and Antiochus Epi- 


phanes). 


306-283 
285-247 
247-221 
221-205 


205-181 


217 
198-197 
190 


[The dates cannot be fixed more exactly (Schiirer, Zec/gesch. i. 140).] 


Kings of Syria. 


King of Egypt. 


Ptolemy VI (Philo- 
metor) 


181-146 


Seleucus IV (Philo- 


pator) 
Antiochus IV (Epi- 


phanes) . 


Antiochus V (Eupa- 
tor) πον: 
Demetrius (Soter) 


Desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes 


Persecution 


B.C. 


187-175 


175-164 


164-162 
162-150 

168 
167-166 


for the Πιϑίογν of the Canon. 


History oF THE CANON. 


that the Chronicler used the complete Psalter in Five 
Books (cf Cheyne, B. LZ. p. 457; Robertson Smith, 
O. T. J. C. p. 202); but the coincidence is somewhat 
remarkable. | 


Canon of the Prophets. 
Ecclesiastes ? 


Original Book of Ecclesiasticus - : - 
[Implies Prophetic Canon; see p. 247 a 


Numerous copies of the Law in private possession, 1 Macc. 


1. 56-58 . : : : : 
On the question of Maccabaean Petes, see pp. 256 f., 
270 ff. 
The Book of Daniel - : : : : 3 


[Dan. ix. 2 implies Prophetic cack The Book of 
Daniel is itself implied in Orac. Szbyll. iii. 396-400, 
dating about 140 B.c.; see p. 102.| 


Greek Version of Ecclus. by the grandson of the author, 

soon after : : 5 Ξ 

[ Prologue implies Canon of Law and Prophets with be- 
ginnings of Canon of Hagzographa; cf. p. 98 f.] 


457 


. 250 


. 180 


167 


. 164 


458 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL History. 
B.C. 
Victories of Judas Maccabaeus and re-dedication of the 


Temple . : - - ς - Ξ : . 166-165 


Death of Judas . 5 : 3 ; 161 
Jonathan Maccabaeus (high-priest, ay : : . 158-142 
Simon Maccabaeus. ‘ ς : ᾿ : : . 142-135 
John Hyrcanus. : : ς : : : . 135-105 
Aristobulus I (king) ς : : : : » 105-104 
Alexander Jannaeus : : : Ἴ : : . 1ο4-|8ὃ 
Alexandra (Salome) eae parte ‘ : πῶ 
Aristobulus IT. Ξ κ : : : : Ξ Ξ 69-63 
Hyrcanus II . : : ; : - : : : 63-40 
Antigonus . : 5 3 : - “ : - 40-37 


Roman Period. 


Taking of Jerusalem by Pompey . : : - 63 
[Roman supremacy dates from this ἐπ 
Battle of Pharsalia, followed by death of Pompey . . 48 
Assassination of Julius Caesar. ; : : 44 
Defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi : : : 42 
Herod the Great . : ‘ : : : ᾿ 2 37-4 
Archelaus ; ' : 4 B.C.-6 A.D. 
Battle of Actium and ἜΤ οἵ ἀξ rey Empire. 31 B.C. 
Rebuilding of Temple by Herod begins : . 20-19 B.C. 
[Completed under Albinus, 62-64 a. τ 
Nativity ΟΕ our Lorp Jrsus Curist. ° . . 4 B.C. 
Emperors of Rome. A.D. 
Augustus ~. . .B.C.3I-A.D.14 Wlaadiag ss" Sete ere 41-54 
TMeRnUS, . ὁ. τὸ τ AD, ΤῊ - Ὁ Nero’ |) τ ΤῊΝ 54-68 
δ ΠΝ ahve se 37-41 Galbaviiciis.¢. ara 68-69 


[Nero, οὖ. June 9, 68; Galba, οὗ. Jan. 15, 69; Otho, ‘ Apr. 17, 
69; Vitellius, οὖ. Dec. 4, 69.] 


Jor the History of the Canon. 459 


History OF THE CANON. 
B.C. 


First Book of Maccabees 5 : c. 100 
[Implies Book of Daniel (p. 102 ἜΝ τ aloe Ps. 
Ixxix. 2, 3 as Scripture (p. 256). |] 


We may perhaps place about this time 


The Canon of the Hagiographa. 
[Apocryphal additions go on being composed and find 
their way into the collection, esp. at Alexandria. | 
Ecclesiastes quoted as Scripture by Simon ben Shetach 
(p. 102 sup.) . : - : : : : . 105-79 


Psalms of Solomon . - : - : : : . ὦ, 63-48ὃ 


Old Testament systematically expounded by Shemaiah and 
Abtalion . 6 : : : : : . . €.50-40 


Hillel expounds Ecclesiastes and puts forth seven rules of 
interpretation (pp. 81, 82 su.) . : : : : aA. 


Writings of Philo imply Jewish Canon, though his con- 
ception of Inspiration extends beyond it (p. 93 f. sz.), 
for the most part before . : : : : - 40 
Book of Jubilees_. : : : : . ς -  ¢. 50-60 
[A Midrash on Genesis. | 
Pauline Epistles. : : : : : : : 52-67 


Catholic Epistles . : : : - : Σ . 57-90 
Epistle to Hebrews . . : ὃ : : : : c. 68 


Apocalypse . δ : : : : : .69? (or 95?) 


46ο Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL Hisrory. 


L-mperors of Rome. 
A.D. A.D. 
IMESDASIAN Fish cs. ae ὁ 69-79 Domitian. =e 81-96 
SIGS: Ὁ in eee 79-81 


Herod Philip, Tetrarch of Ituraea, Trachonitis, &c. . 4 B.C.-34 A.D. 
Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea - 4B.C.-39 A.D. 


Roman Procurators of Judaea. 


A.D. AD. 
τ πὸ 6-9 Pontius Pilatus . . 26-36 
Marcus Ambivius. . 9-12 ΜΠ ΟΕ ΒΞ 2a 36-37 
Annius Rufus. . . 12-15 ΝΠ (2ieecees 37-41 
Valerius Gratus . . 15-26 


Herod Agrippa I receives from Caligula the tetrarchies of 
Philip and Lysanias, a.p. 37; to this is added the 
tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, a.p. 40; King of Judaea. 41-44 


Herod Agrippa II . ; : ὃ : : : - 50-100 


Roman Procurators again, 44-66. 


Cuspius Fadus. . . 44-2 Porcius Festus . . 60-62 
Tiberius Alexander . ? —48 Albinus..*** 2°. 6.) Oe 
Ventidius Cumanus . 48-52 Gessius Florus . . 64-66 
PGMS iG: ce, Lara Τὸ: 52-60 
Affair of Caligula’s statue . : - - ‘ . 40 
(Petronius legate of Syria.) 
Outbreak of the Jewish War : : : - : 66 
Subjugation of Galilee. : ‘ : ; : 67 
Internal strife in Jerusalem . ἃ 67-69 
Siege of Jerusalem by Titus from ae tly ἜΣ Picaavee 
to Sept. 8 . : Ξ ° 70 
DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE, 9, 10 ‘AD (Augen : 70 


Conclusion of the War Z : ᾿ 3 ‘ 5 "0-Ὁ72 


Jor the History of the Canon. 


History OF THE CANON. 


Composition of Synoptic Gospels in stages spread over the 
years. ἢ : : : : : - 


[ Perhaps beginning earlier. | 
ACS | - . . - : . - . 5 


Gospel of St. John. 


[The New Testament implies the Jewish Canon with full 
conception of Inspiration, but also bears traces of 
some use of Apocrypha. | 


Josephus, Anfg. and Contr. Apion. . : . 5 

[Reckons 22 Books of Jewish Canon, with ful concep- 

tion of Inspiration, which however extends beyond 
these books. | 


4 Ezra, after . : . 
[Implies twenty-four αὐ δε δὶ ΠΥ ᾿ the ‘Old Testa- 
ment, with others which are also inspired. } 


Epistle of Barnabas : 
[Quotes Matthew, or possibly some Siler ἌΣ ἘΠ 
document, as Scripture. ] 


Clem. Rom. ad Cor. : 

[Uses some Synoptic matter, 1 Ἐπ τς bi name, 

Romans, Hebrews certainly, Ephesians, 1 Peter, James 
possibly ; Old Testament with Apocrypha. ] 


461 


A.D. 


60-80 


c. 80 


c. 90 


δ. 94 


7° 


i= (oe 


¢. 97 


462 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENFRAL HIstory. 


Rabbinic Succession. 


B.C. 
The Five Pairs dating from (Schiirer, Zecfgesch. ii. 293) « ¢. 150 
Simon ben Shetach . : : .  €.90-70 


Shemaiah and Abtalion (perhaps = Palto and Gace) - 6. 50-20 
Hillel and Shammai : : : : - - - 637-4 


A.D. 
GamalielI . ὃ : : : : : - 630-40 
Hananiah ben ene 3 : ; : ‘ . ¢. 50-60 
Simon ben Gamaliel : : a 5 : ὃ . ¢.60-70 


School of Jamnia, a.D. 70-135. 
Johanan ben Zakkai : : fi. c. 70-90 
Gamaliel II, Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, Tosbtl ben Tanase ¢. QO-1LO 
Eleazar of Modiim, Eleazar ben Azariah. 
Ishmael ben Elisha (locally separate from the School of 


Jamnia and opposed to Akiba). : : : .¢. 100-120 
Akiba . ‘ : 3 ; ; Ξ ; F -¢., 100-135 
The second Jewish War under Bar-Cochba . : . 132-135 
Formation of the Mishna, esp. by the Patriarch Jehuda I 
(Rabbi) carrying on the work of Akiba, completed . ¢.220 


[The leading Rabbis of the earlier period, from 
Hillel, are called Zannazm, those of the later period 
to the completion of the Talmud Amorazm.] 


Jerusalem Talmud finished c. 425, Babylonian . : ¢. 500 


Roman Emperors. 


Nerval - . : 5 3 : : ς : Ξ : 96-98 
Draian : Ξ : : . . : : - 98-117 
Hadrian . : ᾿ : : : : . : . 117-138 


Antoninus Pius, ; Ξ : ; : ¢ . 138-161 


for the History of the Canon. 463 


History ΟΕ THE CANON. 


A.D. 
Rabbinical discussions at Jamnia, resu'ting in full ratifica- 
tion of the Jewish Canon . Ἶ : : : . %O-130 
Διδαχὴ τῶν ιβ΄ ἀποστόλων. : 5 : .¢. 100-110 
[Uses some Synoptic and ἘΣ Γ | 
Collection of Pauline Epistles, before . : 117 
Ignatius, /pzst/es, before. : : : τιν 
[Uses some Synoptic and Teienneaw matter (perhaps 
Matthew, John), 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 
Colossians, 1 Timothy, Titus. ] 
Polycarp, Zp. ad Phil. (soon after Ignat. Epp.). 
[Uses Synoptic matter, 1 Corinthians (as St. Paul's), 
Ephesians (perhaps as Scripture), also clearly Romans, 
Galatians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 
Timothy, 1 Peter, 1 John, Acts. | 
Papias makes express statements respecting Aéya of St. 
Matthew and Notes of St. Peter’s Teaching put 
together by St. Mark; also used 1 Peter, 1 John .¢. 125-130 
Apocryphal Gospel of Peter . : : .¢.125-130 


[Probably based on Four Canonical Gospels see ἢ. 310f., 
sup. | 
Basilides : : ¢. 130 
[ Probably εὐπιϑεῖὲ teed Take. Tenn PESee ps pe: dips] 


Massoretie Text of O.T. dates from . Ξ - ¢. 135 


‘Presbyters’ quoted by Irenacus« : «σι τ4ο-τύο 
Expound Ev. Jo., Epp. Paul., and recognise ἈΠ pac 

Ποιμήν of Hermas . : «  G BAO 
[Perhaps implies Four ὌΠ His I Οὐ εν 

Hebrews, James, Old Testament Apocrypha. ] 

Marcion. : ‘ a - ¢. 146 
[Acknowledges eee at ten np Paul.] 

Writings of Justin Martyr : . ¢. 150-165 or perhaps 138-165 
[Use Four Gospels+ Ἐν. Pet. and Apocalypse by name.] 


464 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL HIsTory. 


A.D. 
M. Aurelius . : - - - : : ; - 161-180 
Commodus . : é : ; : : : . 180-192 
Dynasty of Severus. ; ‘ , : - - » 193-235 
Period of disturbance and dissolution . , . 235-268 


[Persecutions under Decius, 250, 251; π᾿ Valerian, 
257: 258.] 


Jor the History of the Canon. 465 


History OF THE CANON. 


Clem. Rom. £%. 17 (Pseudepigraphal Homily) . : : ¢. 150 
[Quotes Synopt. and Apocr. Gospels. ] 
Tatian, Diatessaron : : 3 : : 3 ¢. 170 
[Harmony of Four aaa 
Ptolemaeus ᾿ 
Heracleon 
[Use freely Four Gospels and Epp. Paul.; Heracleon 
writes allegorical commentary on St. John 
Melito . : ¢. 170 
Makes list of ae -two Beek af Old. πεσε 
(implying conception of New Testament) and com- 
ments on Apocalypse. ] 


Athenagoras . : 6.197 
[Evv., Romans, rand 2 Ganntiiens aliens I Timothy] 

Lp. Eccles. Vienn. et Lugd. ς 5 σ Τὴ ἢ 
[ Luke, John, Acts, Epp. Paul., πεν ‘Apocalypse-] 

Theophilus of Antioch . : ¢. 181 


[ Quotes St. John by name and as eae Ae Matthewas as 
Scripture, Epp. Paul. Mh ae ), Hebrews, 1 Peter. | 
Irenaeus. : : .¢. 180-190 
[ Quotes, mostly ἐν name an as Sen canara, Four Gospels, 
Acts, twelve Epp. Paul., 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, Apo- 
calypse. | 
Clement of Alexandria. : : «ΠΟ 190-210 
[ = Irenaeus with addition a Jude, and. some ἀπ ypha 
—with a distinction. ] 
Muratorian Fragment. : ¢. 200 
[Four Gospels, Acts, teen Epp. Paul, I τὸ 2 iene 
Jude, Apocalypse, to which some add iMae. Petr] 
Provisional Canon of New Testament . 200 
Includes Four Gospels, Acts, thirteen Epp. Paul., ad 
(except in Syria) 1 Peter, 1 John. 
Tertullian : Ε -¢. 104-221 
[ Adds to the ae Jude, ἐττς ε΄. as work 
of Barnabas. | 


Hippolytus . : . . .. 200-235 
[Adds Apocaly ne not aes j 
Julius Africanus. - ¢.240 


[ Maintains stricter lone ean araoat LXX ΕἸ 559] 
Hh 


466 Chronological Table of Data 


Events ΙΝ GENERAL History. 


The Illyrian Emperors . : : : : : . 
[Recovery of the Empire.] 

Diocletian and his colleagues, with their successors . . 
[The Great Persecution, 303-313.] 

Constantine sole emperor : . Ε . . . 
[Council of Nicaea, 325.] 


Sons of Constantine (Constantine to 340, Constans to 350, 


Constantius to 361). : . ° . . 
Julian . . . . . . . ° . 
Jovian . . : . . . . . . . 
Valens 364-378, Valentinian I and his sons . . 


Theodosius ὁ . . a . > . ° - 
Arcadius 395-408, Honorius . Ξ : Ε : 


268-283 
283-323 


323-337 


337-361 


361-363 
363-364 
364-392 


379-395 
395-423 


Jor the History of the Canon. 


History OF THE CANON. 


Origen . : 

[Has complete Ganon is Old πὰ New τοι τ, the 
Twelve Minor Prophets being omitted, probably by 
accident, and doubts noted as to 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 
John. Origen’s list of books corresponds to the 
Hebrew Canon, though he defends the use of LXX 
additions. | 

Eusebius : 

[Classes Four Gand Ade Epp Pac I iis, I Peter 
as acknowledged; James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John 
as disputed by a minority; Apocalypse as wavering 
between complete acceptance and rejection. ] 

Cyril of Jerusalem . : . . 

[Complete Canon, suet ΤΕΥ 7 

Mommsen’s List 

[Complete Canon Soon jem irae an vale of oss? 

as to 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John.| 


Council of Laodicea : . ° . 
[Complete Canon, except πες “ἢ 
Athanasius. . . . . . - . 


[ Complete Canam ] 
Amphilochius of Iconium. 
[Complete Canon of Old π΄ ΠΣ Cath. ee 
or seven, Apocalypse omitted. | 


Gregory Nazianzen, before. : : - 
[Complete Canon, except a pe] 

Epiphanius, before . . . . . . 
[Complete Canon. | 

Council of Carthage III . - - - : - 
[Complete Canon. | 

Council of Carthage IV . : : - : ‘ 


[Ratifies list of previous Council. | 
The Syrian Canon at this date, however, still recognises 
only three Epp. Cath. (Chrysostom) or two (Theodore 
of Mopsuestia). 
Quinisextine or Trullan Council . : ο - 
Sanctions previous lists (see pp. 6 f., 59 ὭΣ 
[For other lists reference may be ἘΠῚ to works on the 
Canon, or S/ud, Bibl. iii. 227 ff., 254 ff] 
Η ἢ 2 


467 


A.D. 


185-253 


δ: 524 


403 
397 


419 


692 


ἐν 


PN DB XxX 


[References are given to the names of living or recent writers only where they 
are introduced with some comment, and in cases of special indebtedness. ] 


Abbott, Dr. Edwin A., 385. 

Abbott, Dr. T. K., 310. 

Abtalion, 81, 459, 462. 

Acts of the Apostles, 12,17 f., 66f., 
265, 278, 318 ff, 339, 461, 463, 
465, 467; Commentaries on the, 
319; Criticism of the, 320 ff. 

Addis, Mr. W. E., 134, 234. 

Africanus, Julius, 92, 105, 465. 

Age, The Apostolic, 321 ff., 327 f.,, 
331 ff.; The Subapostolic, 14, 
208 ff., 360 ff. 

Akiba, 90, 108 f., 462. 

Alexander, bp. of Jerusalem, 9. 

Alexandrinus, Cod., 11. 

Allegory, 39, 68f., 79 f., 405 f., 421. 

Alogi, The, 14 f., 55, 369. 

Amcraim, 462. 

Amos, 155, 227, 229 ff, 403, 4515 
Book of, 118, 143, 229 f., 405, 
451. 

Amphilochius, 7, 92, 467. 

Analogy, Argument from, 421 ff, 
425 ff. 

Anonymous writings, 240 f., 379. 

Apocalypse, The, 8. ἢ, 253 f.; 27, 
369 ff, 3791. 459, 463, (fo® 467 ; 
Inspiration of the, 375 ff. 

— of Peter, 347, 384. 

Apocalypses, Apocryphal, 27, 91, 
107, 347: 

Apocalyptic, 375. 

Apocrypha of the N.T., 27 f., 463, 
465; of the O. T., 91 ff., 459, 463. 

Apocryphal, Double sense of the 
word, 106 ff. 

Apostles, Authority of the, 48 ff., 67, 
305, 354, 358 f, 362, 366, 379 fie; 
Memoirs of the, 304 ff. 

Apostolic authorship, 47 ff. 


Archelaus, bp. of Caschara, 36. 
Aristeas, (Pseudo-), 86. 
Arnold, Matthew, 153. 

Article, The Sixth, 258, 348. 
Athanasius, 8, 92, 113, 467. 
Athenagoras, 465. 

Augustine, 6f., 46, 51 f. 

ἅγιος, 28, 73, 289. 

ἀδελφός, 289. 

ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, 354. 


Baba Bathra: see ‘Talmud.’ 

Bacher, Dr. W., 81 f. 

Balaam, 77, 131, 139, 268. 

Ball, Mr. C. J., 261. 

Barnabas, Epistle of, 27, 301, 379, 
461. 

Baruch, 237 ff.; Apocalypse of, 91, 
284; Epistle of, 335. 

Basil, 368. 

Basilides, 38, 308, 463. 

Bathgen, Dr. F., 256. 

Baudissin, Graf von, 121. 

Bel and the Dragon, 262. 

Bennett, Mr. E. N., 311, 313. 

Bevan, Prof. A. A., 215. 

Bible: see ‘Canon,’ ‘New Testa- 
ment,’ ‘Old Testament,’ ‘Scrip- 
tures,’ &c.; Beginnings of the, 
226 ff. 

Blunt, Dr. J. J., 325. 

Bodington, Canon, 416. 

Book-production, Modes of, 157, 
297. 

Briggs, Dr. ἘΞ A., 191. 

Bright, Dr. W., 416f. 

Budde, Dr. K., 270. 

Buhl, Dr. F., xv, 102, 107 f., 121. 

Butler, Bp., 370, 437. 

βιβλία, βίβλοι, 28, 72, 73. 


470 


Caius, 15. 

Callistus, 53. 

Campe, Dr. W., 243. 

Canon: see ‘ Bible,’ ‘ Inspiration,’ 
‘New Testament,’ ‘Old Testa- 
ment,’ ‘ Scriptures’; also Hagio- 
grapha, ‘ Law,’ ‘Prophets,’ ἅς. ; 
Conception of a, x, xii, 4f., 71, 
234, 393; The Jewish, 92, 96 ff, 
257 f., 459, 461, 463, 465; Divi- 
sions of the Jewish, οὗ ff.; Eastern, 
8, 257, 366; Western, 8, 257, 366; 
The Alexandrian, 91 ff.; The 
Palestinian, 91 ff.; The maxi- 
mum, 257 ff.; The mznzmum, 
257 ff.; Roman Catholic view of 
the, 257f., 273 ff.; Lutheran view 
of the, 257. 

Canons, The Apostolic, 7. 

Carthage, Councils of: see ‘ Coun- 
cils.’ 

Catechesis, 300, 302 f. 

Catholic Epistles (see ‘James, 
Epistle of,’ &c.), 8f., 10, 56, 344 ff., 
358 ff., 366 ff., 379 ff., 459; Collec- 
tion of the, 8 f. 

Catholicity, 53 ff. 

Cheyne, Dr. T. K., 116, 121, 190, 
195, 198f., 243, 355. 

Chiliasm, 64. 

‘Christ,’ The name, 289. 

Chronicles, Books of, 102, 163, 244, 
253 ff., 398, 455, 457. 

Chrysostom, 10, 389f., 467. 

Church, Authority of the, ix f,, xii; 
The Bible as the voice of the, xi. 

Church, Dean, 198. 

Churches, Reception bythe, 51, 368 ἢ. 

Circumcision, Controversy on, 323. 

Clayton, Mr. H. E., 416. 

Clenien, Dr..C.,' 278; 327, 320. 

Clement of Alexandria, 17, 21, 26, 
28 f., 31 ff, 37 ff, 49, 53, 65 ff, 
299, 315, 382, 465. 

Clement of Rome, First Epistle of, 
27, 50, 299 ff., 340, 361, 365, 380, 
386, 461 ; Second Epistle of (so- 
called), 17, 27, 465. 

Colossians, Epistle to the, 337 f, 
342, 360, 463. 

Computus de Pascha, 35. 

Constantine, The Emperor, 33. 

Cooke, Mr. G. A., 235. 

Corinth, Church of, 361. 

Corinthians, Epistles to the, 332, 


Index. 


340, 342, 350, 352 ff., 357f., 387 ff, 
463, 465. 

Cornill, Dr. Ὁ. H., xv, ΤΟΙ, 159, 26% 
210, 242, 455. 

Cosmas Indicopleustes, 11. 

Councils, 6f.; of Carthage, III, 6f., 
60, 467; of Carthage, IV, 6, 8, 59, 
467; of Laodicea, 7, 60 f., 467 ; 
Quinisextine or Trullan, 6,59, 467; 
of Trent, 274 ff.; Vatican, 274. 

Covenant, Book of the, 180 ff., 233f., 
449. 

Criticism, Modern, xi, 2, 115 ff., 
408 f., 413. 

Cultus: see ‘ Law, The ceremonial.’ 

Cyprian, 29 f. 

Cyril of Jerusalem, 8, 92, 113, 467. 

χρησμός (see ‘ Mantic’), 72, 75. 


Daniel, Book of, 85, 100, 102, 143, 
215 ff, 247, 253 ff., 377, 409, 414, 
457, 459. 

Darmesteter, M. James, 152. 

Davidson, Dr. A. B., 118, 199, 201, 
205, 230. 

De Aleatoribus, 20. 

Deborah, Song of, 229, 235, 449. 

‘ Defile the hands,’ 78, 111. 

Demetrius, bp. of Alexandria, 53. 

Deuterocanonical, Conception im- 
plied by the term, 261, 273 ff.; 
Inspiration, 259 ff. 

Deuteronomic Code, Promulgation 
of the, 121, 231 ff. 

Deuteronomy, Book of, 121, 170, 
177, 236, 242 f., 245, 376, 453. 

Development, 14, 205, 340, 395, 


435 f. 
De Vita Contemplativa, 99. 
Diatessaron, The, 302, 307. 
Didaché, The, 27, 301 f., 379, 463. 
Dienstfertig, Dr. M., 73, 76 f. 
Dillmann, Dr. A., 121. 
Dionysius of Alexandria, 36. 
Dionysius of Corinth, 361. 
Disciples, 239; Synonyms for the 
name, 288. 
Distinctions, Method of, 269. 
Docetism, 313 f. 
Dreams, 131. 
Driver, Dr. 5. R., xv, 87, 116 ἢ, 139, 
199, 201, 215, 230, 234, 243, 256, 


455. 
Drummond, Dr. James, 308. 
Duhm, Dr. B., 101, 242. 


Index. 


detficus, 29. 
divinus, 29. 
διαθήκη, 30, 65 f. 


Ebed Jesu, 11. 

Ecclesiastes, Book of, 82, 97, 102 f, 
208 ff., 253 ff., 258; Inspiration 
of, 208, 249, 398, 457, 459. 

Ecclesiasticus, Book of, 94, 98 f, 
168, 247, 254f., 259 ff., 386, 457. 

Ecstasy, 74 f., 131. 

Edersheim, Dr. A., 114 f. 

Egyptians, Gospel according to the, 
27. 

Eichhorn, J. G., 72. 

Eleazar ben Azariah, 462. 

Eleazar of Modiim, 462. 

Election (or Selection), The prin- 
ciple of, 126, 140, 163, 422 f. 

Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, 82. 

Elijah, 227, 231. 

Elisha, 227. 

Ellicott, Bp., 119, 416. 

Elohist, 158 f., 451. 

Elohistic redaction of Psalms, 271. 

Emperors, Worship of the, 377. 

Engelhardt, Dr. M. von, 301. 

Enoch, Book of, 91. 

Ephesians, Epistle to the, 19, 337 f, 
342, 363, 379f., 465. 

Ephod, 132, 143. 

- Epiphanius, 8, 64, 104, 113, 467. 

Epistles, The Canonical (see also 
‘Catholic Epistles,’ ‘ Paul, Epistles 
of St.’), 334 ff., 359 ff. 

Esdras, Books of, 262 f. 

Esoteric, 107. 

Esthen) Bool: of, 182,07; Ε, 203 f., 
222 f., 254, 262, 398. 

Ethnic Religions, 126 ff., 139 f., 179, 
201 f., 395. 

Eusebius of Caesarea, 33, 46, 51, 
293, 467. 

Evil, Problem of, 439. 

Excerpta Theodoti, 308. 

Exegesis, 39 ff., 80 ff., 85 ff. 

Exile, Influence of the, 244 f. 

Exodus, Book of, 164, 176, 180 ff. 

Extensions, Principle of, 264 ff., 
4oo f. 

Ezekiel, 177, 243; Book of, 97, 103, 
242, 247, 453, 455. 

Ezra, 101, 235, 246; Book of, 96, 
164, 253, 262, 265 f., 455; Fourth 
Book of, 91, 106 f., 113, 461. 


471 


ἐκκλησιαστικός (ecclestasticus), 52 f. 
ἐνθουσιᾶν, 75. 
ἐπιθειάζειν, 75. 


εὐαγγέλιον, 317 (cf. 304, 306). 


Fairbairn, Dr. A. M., 125, 198. 
Farrar, Archdeacon F. W., 373, 385. 
Memes Drees 5310. 

First Century, 71 f. 

Fourth Century, 6 ff. 

Future State, Doctrine of the, 420. 


Galatians, Epistle to the, 83, 336, 
340, 350f., 357, 463, 465. 

Gamaliel I, 462. 

Gamaliel II, 462. 

Genesis, Book of, 164, 170, 221 f. 

Gnosticism, 13, 15, 62, 64. 

God, Idea of, 124 ff., 152 ff., 394, 
442 ff., 445. 

Godet, Dr. F., 339. 

Gore, Canon, 415. 

Gospels: see ‘New Testament,’ 
‘Scriptures,’ ‘ Matthew, Gospel of 
St.,’ &c.; The Four Canonical, 
12, 14 ff., 36,277 ff., 303 ff., 307 ff, 
461, 463, 465, 467; Uncanonical, 
27, 290, 300, 310 ff., 465; Pre- 
canonical, 279 ff., 300, 303f., 461, 
463; Criticism of the, 281 ff.; 
Harmony of the, 301 f., 465; 
Text of the, 295 ff.; Inspiration 
of the, 298, 316 ff.; History of 
the name, 304, 306, 316 f. 

Grafe, Dr. E., 94. 

Gregory Nazianzen, 8, 92, 467. 

Gregory Nyssen, 368. 

Gwynn, Dr. J., 1o. 

γράμματα, 28, 73. 

γραφή, 28 f., 67, 72 ἴ. 


Habakkuk, Prophecy of, 453. 

Hackett) Dr Heb: 510; 

Haggai, Prophecies of, 455. 

fagiographa (see also ‘ Psalms} 
‘Job, &c.), 188 ff., 247 ff.; Canon 
of the, 100 ff., 253, 457, 459; In- 
spiration of the, 189 ff., 207, 249. 

Hananiah ben Hezekiah, 97, 462. 

Harclean Version, 10. 

Hammack, DAS, xv, 1:2) ff:, 1d) 20ite5 
28, 61 ff., 64 ff., 311 ff., 364, 370, 
379 ff. 

Harris, Dr. J. Rendel, 296, 501: 

Headlam, Mr. A. C., xvii, 188, 305. 


412 


Heathen: sce ‘ Ethnic.’ 

Hebrew language, 256. 

Hebrews, Epistle to the, 23 ff., 27, 
51, 106, 287, 340 f., 379 f., 459, 
463, 465; Gospel according to 
the, 27, 307. 

Heracleon, 37, 39, 267, 307 f., 465. 

Hermas, 26 f., 309 f., 380, 463. 

Hezekiah, Men of, 247 f., 451. 

Hilary of Poitiers, 113. 

Hilkiah, 121, 180. 

Hillel, 78, 81 f., 97, 103, 459, 462. 

ey kee 27, 29 f., 33, 53, 308, 
405. 

Historical Books, 155 ff., 399 ff.; 
Inspiration of the, 162 ff. 

Hitzig, Dr. F., 243. 

Hobson, Mr. W. F., 416. 

Holtzmann, Dr. H. J., xv, 278, 293, 
300, 310, 363 f., 385. 

Hooker, Richard, 209. 

Hort, Dr. F. J. A., 19, 41, 324, 338, 
343, 347. 

Hosea, 155, 227, 229 f., 403; Book 
of, 118, 229 f. 

Huxley, Prof. T. H., 129, 181. 

Hypothesis, 440. 


Ignatius, 50, 362, 365 f.; Epistles of, 
50, 301, 362 ff., 386, 463. 

Illingworth, Mr. J. R. (Bampton 
Lectures, 1894), 442. 

Immortality, Doctrine of, 205. 

Individual scholars, Influence of, 
8, 53. 

Inspiration: see ‘Canon,’ ‘ Scrip- 
tures,’ ‘Spirit,’ ‘New (Old) Testa- 
ment,’ ‘Gospels,’ ‘Law,’ ‘ Pro- 
phets,’ &c. ; Conception of, 31 ff, 
74 ff., 263 ff., (see also the different 
‘Views of’ below); Psychology 
of, 127 f., 144, 146 f., 355 ff., 441, 
444 f.; Postulates of the doctrine 
of, 124 ff.; proceeds from the 
Holy Spirit, 31 ff., 127, 333 £.; 
proceeds from Christ, 33; De- 
grees of, 42 ff, 259, 350, 357 ἢ, 
385 ἢ, 397f.; Criteria of, 47 ff, 
110 ff., 260 ; of Apocrypha, 359 ff. 
(cp. 386); Formative period of 
doctrine of, 3; Modern view of, 
443 ff.; Verbal, 34 ff., 85 ff, 303, 
306, 313f.; Philo’s view of, 72 ff., 
84, 93f, 459; New Testament 
view of, 76 f., 83, 87 ff., 407 ff, 


Index. 


461; Josephus’ view of, 76f., 84 f., 
89 ἢ, 110 f., 461; Traditional 
view of, 391 ff., 399 ff. ; Inductive 
or critical view of, 391 ff., 399 ff. 

Interpolation, 159, 342 f., 379 ff., 
409. 

Irenaeus, 12, 33 ff., 38, 41 f., 49, 53, 
56 ἢν, 115, 309, 315,371, 387, 465. 

Irony of Christ, 419. 

Isaiah, 84, 106, 155, 179, 239, 241; 
Book of, 84, 103, 137, 170, 241 f., 
247, 405, 451; Second, 164, 405, 
453, 455. ‘ 

Ishmael ben Elisha, 82, 462. 

iepai (γραφαί, βίβλοι, &c.), 28, 72 f. 

ἱεροφαντεῖν, ἱερυφάντης, 72, 75. 


James, Mr. M. R., 347. 
James, St., 8, 359, 381; Epistle of 
(see also ‘Catholic Epistles’), 9, 


23 ff., 344 ff, 359, 366, 379, 381, 
463, 465, 467; Terminology of, 
28 


rE 

Jamnia, School of, 71, 82, 93, 96 ff, 
107 ff., 123, 463. 

Jasher, Book of, 229, 449. 

Jehoiakim, 238. 

Jehovist, 158 f., 163, 451. 

Jeremiah, 84, 155, 177, 180, 237 ἢν» 
242 f.; Book of, 96, 103, 113, 
142, 164, 237 ff., 245 f., 247, 453, 
455; Epistle of, 335. 

Jerome, 43 f., 47, 51, 92, 100, 113, 
214f., 230, 383. 

Jerusalem, Church of, 9; Fall of, 
279, 283 ff., 291 ff., 370, 374. 

Jesus Christ, Use of the Old Testa- 
ment by, 407 ff., 414 ff. ; Teaching 
of, 417 ff.; Irony of, 419. 

Joash, 232 f. 

Job, Book of, 102, 204 ff., 243, 455 ; 
Inspiration of the, 206 f. 

Joel, Book of, 229, 451. 

Johanan ben Zakkai, 82, 462. 

John, St., 67, 359; Writings of, 
14 ff.; Gospel of (see also ‘ Gos- 
pels, Four Canonical’), 14 ff., 83, 
203, 265, 287, 289 f., 294, 307 ff, 
311, 379 f., 433, 461, 463, 465 ; 
First Epistle of, 9, 11, 359, 366, 
463, 465, 467 ; Second Epistle of, 
25,465, 467 ; Third Epistle of, 25, 
368, 467 ; Terminology of, 287. 

Jonah, Book of, 97, 137, 409, 414, 
455- 


Index. 


Josephus, 72, 76 ff., 84 f., 89 f., 94, 
100, 113 f., 267, 278, 383, 461. 

Joshua, 243. 

Joshua ben Hananiah, 462. 

Josiah, 121, 232. 

Jubilees, Book of, 91. 

Judaism, Hellenistic, 91, 95, 321 f.; 
The later, 185, 255, 411 ff. 

Jude, St., 359, 381; Epistle of, 26, 
359, 379 ff, 382 ff, 465, 467. 

Judges, Book of, 96, 113, 229, 243. 

Judith, Book of, 254 f. 

Junilius, 10. 

Justin Martyr, 12f., 50, 301, 304 ff., 
463. 


Kamphausen, Dr. A., 215. 

Keim, Dr. Th., 278. 

Kethubim.: see Hagiographa. 

King, The ideal, 404. 

‘Kingdom of God’ (or ‘of heaven’), 
The phrase, 288. 

Kings, Books of, 96, 104, 155, 164, 
201, 229, 243, 265. 

Kirkpatrick, Dr. A. F., 229, 266. 

Keittel ir Re 120. 

Kldpper, Dr. A., 338. 

Knowling, Mr. R. J., 303, 337. 

Koheleth: see ‘Ecclesiastes.’ 

Kohler, Dr. A., 138. 

Konig, Dre E., xv, 106, 130, 138, 
141 f., 146, 256. 

Kuenen, Dr. A., 101, 116 ff, 249. 

Kuhn, Dr. G., 364. 


κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, 354. 


Lagarde, Dr. P. de, 92, ΤΟΙ: 

Lamentations, Book of, 96, 112, 253. 

Laodicea, Epistle to, 360; Council 
of, see ‘ Councils.’ 

Law: see ‘ Pentateuch’; Jewish 
estimate of the, 168 ff.; Christian 
estimate of the, 170 f.; Critical 
estimate of the, 171 f.; Origin of 
the, 178 f.; Religious Character of 
the, 180; Humanity of the, 181 f.; 
The ceremonial, 182 ff.; Written, 
231 ff.; Reading of the, 244 ff. ; 


Promulgation of the, 227, 231 f., ' 


455 ; Stages in the history of the, 
235 f.; Abrogation of the, 410 f.; 
Canon of the, 100 f., 170, 228, 
236, 246; Inspiration of the, 
576 15 183 fh, 264-1, 3965 Use 
of the term, 170. 


473 


Lazarus, Parable of, 420. 

Kechler Dir Ge Vay 344: 

Leontius, 113. 

Leucius Charinus, 27. 

Libraries, Influence of, 9. 

Lightfoot, Bp. J. B., 278, 300, 319. 
329, 345, 370, 373. 

Lock, Mr. Walter, xvii, 56, 222 f. 

Lods, Mons. A., 313. 

Logia, The, 281, 300, 304. 

Logos, The, 204, 289 f., 425 ff. 

Loisy, Prof. A., 273 ff. 

Lucretius, 439. 

Euke, St.,. 279) £, 528). ‘Gospel ‘of 
(see also ‘Gospels, The Four 
Canonical’), 18, 51, 99 f., 277 ff., 
293, 301, 379 f., 401, 432, 463, 465. 

Lumby, Dr. J. R., 385. 

λόγιον, 72 f., 75. 

λόγος (θεῖος, ἱερός), 28, 72. 


Maccabees, Books of, 102, 109 f., 
254, 256f., 335, 457, 459. 

Malachi, 455. 

Manasseh, Prayer of, 262. 

Mangold, Dr. W. J., 344. 

Mantic, 75, 132, 143. 

Marcion, 15,19, 364f., 463. 

Mark, St., 280f., 294, 463; Gospel 
Of) 51, 2860. ἢ 201 ΠΡ 301, 911, 
370. 

Massebieau, Prof. L., 99. 

Matthew, St., 280 f., 300; Gospel 
Of; $3,265, 280 πὶ, 291 ΠΣ 301, 
311, 432, 463, 465. 

Mayor, Dr. J. B., 24, 344 f. 

Megilloth, 252 f. 

Melito, 30, 92, 132 f., 465. 

Mesha, 135 ff. 

Messianic office, The, 417. 

— Prophecy: see ‘ Prophecy.’ 

Metaphysics, 153. 

Method, A priori, 423; 
inquiry, 3 ff. 

Methodius, 37. 

Micah, Book of, 142, 241, 451. 

Mill, J. S., 144, 438. 

Milligan, Dr. W., 369. 

Moabite Religion, 135 ff., 151. 

— Stone, The, 135 ff., 228, 448. 

Mommsen, Prof. Th., 339. 

Mommsen’s List, 113, 467. 

Monarchians, 41, 64. 

Monks, as historians, 158. 

Montanism, 13, 15, 62, 64. 


of the 


474 


Montefiore, Mr. C. G., 116, 119, 
121, 141 Ὁ: 144, 163, 185, 249. 
Mosaic element in the Pentateuch, 
ΤΣ ἮΝ, 1197 

Moses, 175, 177 ff, 408, 414; 
Assumption of, 9I. 

Miiller, Dr. K., 21 f. 

Muratorian Fragment, The, 12, 19, 
23, 26, 32, Ab 48, 56, 465. 

μαθητής, 2888. 

μακάριος, 67. 

μανία, 75- = 


Nahum, 84, 453. 

Narrative, Historical, 160. 

Nathan, 231, 405. 

Naturalism, 2, 116 f. 

Neander, August, 344. 

Nehemiah, 101, 235, 246; Book of, 
96, 164, 253, 455. 

Neopythagoreanism, 56, 75. 

Nero redivivus, 373. 

Neubauer, Dr. A., 256. 

Neutral zone in our Lord’s teaching, 
A, 419. 

New Testament, The: see ‘ Canon,’ 
‘ Scriptures,’ ‘Gospels,’ ‘Acts,’ 
‘Epistles, &c.; on the same 
footing with O. T., 30f., 65 f., 316, 
366, 375; Use of O. T. Apo- 
crypha in, 94f.; Text of, 295 ff., 
342 ff. ; Criticism of, xvif.; Canon 
of, 6, 12, 22 f, 57, 63, 348, 369, 
465, 467; Inspiration of, 31 ff., 
333f., 350 ff., 353. 

Nicephorus, 113. 

Noah, 409, 414. 

Novatian, 30, 38. 

Numbers, Book of, 22 

— Symbolical use of, 56 ff., 112 ff. 

νόμος, 6, 265. 


Obadiah, Book of, 229, 242, 451. 

Old Testament, The: see ‘ Canon,’ 
‘Scriptures,’ ‘Law,’ ‘ Prophets,’ 
Hagiographa, ‘ Pentateuch,’ 
‘Genesis,’ ‘ Exodus,’ &c.; Criti- 
cism of, xvi, 115 ff.; Text of, 262 f.; 
Canon of, 4 ἢ, 91 f., 257, 459, 
461, 467; Inspiration of, 74 ἢ 
353. 

Optimism, 438. 

Origen, 26, 28, 31 ff, 37 ff, 46, 51, 
53, 55. 92, 105, 113, 115, 267, 
310, 382, 388 f., 421, 467. 


Index. 


Overbeck, Dr. F., 24 f., 379f. 


Page, Mr. ΤΟ ΕΝ 310; 

Paley, William, 325. 

Papias, 23, 45, 280 ff., 463. 

Parsimony, Law of, 417 ff. 

Parthians, The, 373, 377. 

Particularism, 351, 370. 

Pastoral Epistles, 19, 25, 337 ff., 
363 ff., 379 f., 463, 465. 

Paul, St., 331 ἢ, 339 f., 350 ff, 
355 ff., 359; Epistles of, 12, 18 ff., 
68 f., 229, 325 ἢ, 335. ΠΡ gooun 
363 ff, 403, 459, 463, 465, 467 ; 
Inspiration of, 42 ff., 323 f., 326f., 
331 ff, 401; Terminology of, 
287; Acts of, 11; and Thecla, 
Acts of, 17. 

Pauline Epistles, Collection of the, 
19, 363 ff., 384; Order of the, 
365 f. 

Pentateuch, The: see ‘Law’; 
Structure of, 172, 443; Mosaic 
element in, 172 ff, 177, 4493 
Prophetical element in, 177 ff. ; 
Priestly element in, 179 ff., 397 ; 
Authorship of, 172 ff., 409. 

Pentateuchs, 104. 

Persecution of Christians, 339, 372, 


3741. ΄ 

Personality of God, 436, 442 ἔ, 
445. 

Peshitto Version, Influence of the, 
10. 

Pessimism, 437. 

Peter, St., 67, 323 £, 326 ἢν 350 
First Epistle of, 9, 12, 56, 346, 
359, 366, 379 ff., 463, 465, 467; 
Second Epistle of, 26, 346 ff., 
381, 382 ff, 399, 467; Ter- 
minology of, 287; Apocryphal 
Gospel of, 16, 290, 310 ff., 463 ; 
Apocalypse of, 27, 347 f., 384; 
Preaching of, 27. 

Philemon, Epistle to, 43, 223, 337, 
364. 

Philippians, Epistle to the, 337, 
6 


403. 
Philo, 72 ff, 79 ff, 84 ff, 93 f., 99, 
459. 
Philoxenian Version, 10. 
Physical excitement, 130, 143. 
Plummer, Dr. A., xvii, 385, 415. 
Polycarp, 299, 362, 365 f.; Epistle 
of, 362 f., 463. 


Ἷ 


Index. 


Portner, Dr. B., 273. 

‘Presbyters’ quoted by Irenaeus, 
463. 

Priests, 157, 179, 183 ff, 224, 236, 


397. 

Prophecy; 70, 82 ff, 132 f.,. 231, 
254; Predictive, 78, 83ff.; Ful- 
filmentofS2 3 205 £376 ἕξ; 
Conditional character of, 266: 
Messianic, 154, 219 f., 404 f. 

Prophet, The ideal, 404. 

Prophets, 129 ff., 224, 394f.; Com- 
munities of, 133; False, 134, 
Τὴ τ; Professionals 333), . fiz; 
TAO fh + Writing, 227 ἢ, 237 ff. 
403; As historians, 155 ff., 164, 
268 f., 400 f.; The Former, 155, 
1645) The Latter, πα; 164. he 
Major, 102, 143,157; The Minor, 
96, 143, 157, 247; The higher, 
143 ff.; Transmission of the 
writings of the, 239 ff.; Canon 
of whe, Τοῦ ἢ, 2283, 231, 247%; 
in the New Testament, 353 f., 
362, 372, 375 ff.; Authority of 
the, 231, 245; Inspiration of 
the, 128 ff, 146 ff, /264 ff., 268, 
353, 375 ff., 394 ff., 400 f, 441; 
Modern, 166 f. 

Proverbs, Book of (see ‘Wise 
Men’), 102, 200 ff., 247 ff., 276, 
455; Structure of the, 200ff. 

Providence, Traces of a Higher, 
202,220 1, 2531, 237. 220, 244 fie, 
402 ff. 

sPsalinge 170, 195.0 198 ἢ; 2421 
250 ff., 398, 405, 4C9, 414, 455; 
Smaller collections included in 
the Book of, 193 ff., 250 ff., 271 ; 
Date of the, 192 f., 251 f., 270 ff., 
455, 459; Maccabaean, 256 f., 
270 ff.; Inspiration of the, 195 ff., 
397: 

Pseudonymous authorship, 217 f., 
224 f., 348. 

Ptolemaeus, 308, 465. 

Public Worship, Reading or Use 
in, 244:4.,2527.315,1.,, 3004, 

principalts, 32. 

providentia (Sancté Spiritus), 35 
(cf. 83). 

περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων, 27. 

πνευματοφύρος, 31. 


Quartodecimans, 55. 


475 


Quinisextine or Trullan Council: 
see ‘Councils.’ 

Quotation, Formulae of, 76, 301, 
304; Freedom of, 298 ff. 


Rabbinical exegesis, 80 ff., 87 f, 
356. 

Rablts, Dra Α.., 192. 

Ramsay, Prof. W. M., 329 f., 338 f, 
346, 372 £,, 384. : 

Reading in public worship: see 
‘Public.’ 

— public; A, 241 f. 

Resch, Dr. A., 296, 299 f., 303 f. 

Revelation, 124 f., 164 f., 430,440 ff. ; 
Applied, 396 ff. 

Richardson, Mr. J. G., 355. 

Riehm, Dr. E., 144, 146. 

Ritschl, Dr. A., 344. 

Robertson, Prof. James, 118 f., 130, 
230. 
Romans, Epistle to the, 336, 340 ff., 
345, 356, 379 f., 403, 413, 463. 
Rome, Church of, 368; Imperial, 
3751., 377. 

Romestin, Mr. de, 416. 

Routh, Dr. M. J., 28. 

Rufinus, 92, 113. 

Ruth, Book of, 96, 112 f., 155, 223, 
2521: 

Ryle, 
227 Ὁ 


Pigs ΕΠ 285, 35%, WS, 129) 


Sacrificial system, The, 186 f. 

Salmon, Dr. G., 15, 309- 

Samaritans, 246 f. 

Samuel, 131 f., 140 f., 231; Books 
of, 96, 129, 164, 239, 243. 

Schools, 242; of the Prophets, 


132. 

Schultz Dir) Ele 130; 

Schiirer, Dr. E., 81, 94, 278, 301, 
312 f., 324, 456. 

Scillitan Martyrs, 20 f. 

Scribes, 240, 246, 249, 253, 256. 

Scriptures, The: see ‘ Bible,’ 
‘ Canon,’ ‘ New (Old) Testament,’ 
‘Law,’ ‘ Prophets,’ &c.; Names 
applied to the, 28f., 72f.; Doc- 
trine of, 420f.; infallible, 37 f., 
88, 265 f., 393; authoritative, 38, 
79, 264f., 392 f.; not discordant, 
37, 55; Interpretation of, 39, 42, 
85 ff., 459; Perversion of, 40 f.; 
Mutilation of, 40; Sacredness of, 


416 


28 f., 390, 72 f.,78; Perfection of, 
36 f., 85 ἢ, go; Finality of, 37, 
89, 267, 376. 

Second Century, 12, 27, 48, 393. 

Seer, 129, 1311. 

Sellin, Dr. E., 192. 

Septuagint, 92, 262, 465, 467. 

Serapion, 16, 33, 48, 315. 

Servant of Jehovah, 404. 

Severianus, 10. 

Shammai, 78, 81, 97, 462. 

Shemaiah, 81, 459, 462. 

Shorthand, 342. 

Sibylline Oracles, 102, 457. 

Siegfried, Dr. K., 86. 

Silvanus, 383. 

Simon ben Gamaliel, 462. 

Simon ben Shetach, 102, 459, 462. 

Sinaitic legislation, 234 f. 

Sinaiticus, Cod., 11. 

Smith, Dr. I. Gregory, 416. 

Smith, Dr. W. Robertson, 119, 194, 
256. 

Socin, Dr. A., 234. 

Soden, Freiherr von, 288, 311 f., 
317 f., 338, 385. 

Solomon, 248; Psalms of, 91, 459. 

‘Son of Man,’ The title, 288. 

Song of Songs, 82, 97, 211 ff., 252f., 
405, 447. 

— of the Three Children, 262. 

Spirit, Gift of the, 332 ff, 352 ff, 
359, 375; 398. 

Spitta, Dr. F., 382 ff. 

Stade, Dr. B., 130. 

Stephen, St., 322. 

Sunday, 361. 

Supernatural, The, 117, 331 ff, 
333, 444- 

Supernatural Religion, 300, 307. 

Surenhusius, 79. 

Susanna, Story of, 362. 

Synagogue, The Great, 253. 

Synagogues, 244 ff., 346. 

Synoptic problem, The, 281 ἢ. 

mae Church of, 9 ff., 21, 348, 465, 
407. 

Syro-Phoenician Woman, The, 419. 

Sacrosanctus, 29. 

Scripiura, 29. 


Talmud, The, 73, 80, 87, 103 ἢ 
113 ff., 462. 

Tannaim, 462. 

Tatian, 301 f., 307, 465. 


Index. 


Taylor, Dr. C., 309 f. 

Tell-el-Amarna tablets, The, xvi, 
221, 228, 448. 

Tertullian, 26, 29, 31, 34f,, 38, 41 
48 f., 51, 112, 315, 357, 361, 364, 
387 f., 465. 

Theodore of Mopsuestia, 10, 467. 

Theodoret, Io. 

Theophany, 235. 

Theophilus, 319. 

Theophilus of Antioch, 28, 302, 465. 

Thessalonians, Epistles to the, 
336f., 353, 360, 363, 463. 

Theudas, 328 f. 

Timothy, Epistles to: see‘ Pastoral 
Epistles.’ 

Titus, Epistle to:. see ‘ Pastoral 
Epistles.’ 

Tobit, Book of, 255. 

Tongues, Speaking with, 328. 

Tradition, Jewish, 98 ff., 103, 155, 
216. 

Turpie, Mr. M°Calman, 79. 

θαυμάσιος, 67. 

θεϊκός, 29. 

θεῖος, 28 f., 67. 

θεόπνευστος, 33, 88. 


θεοφορηθείς, θεοφόρητος, 32, 75. 


Uncanonical Writings (see ‘ Apo- 
crypha’), τί, 16 £, 27, "O1 ti, 
105 ff., 459. 


Valentinians, 41, 308. 

Valentinus, 15, 38, 308. 

Version, The Harclean, 10; The 
Old Latin, 18; The Peshitto, 
10; The Philoxenian, 10; The 
Vulgate, 8; Monophysite, 11. 

Victorinus of Pettau, 113. 

Virgil, Text of, 343. 

Vischer, Herr E., 370. 


Warfield, Dr. B. B., 385. 

Wars of the Lord, Book of the, 
229, 449. 

Wattenbach, Dr. W., 368. 

Weiffenbach, Dr. W., 292. 

Weiss, Dr. B., 303, 344, 361, 364, 
385. 

Weizsicker, Dr. C., 288. 

Wellhausen, Dr. Julius, 116 ff, 
130, 173, 178, 180, 227. 

Westcott, Bp. B. F., 7, 28, 128, 191, 
343, 379; 373- 


Index. 


Wildeboer, Dr. G., xv, 102, 107 f. 

Wisdom, Book of, 94, 254, 256, 
258 ff., 262, 386. 

— of the Son of Sirach, Book of: 
see ‘Ecclesiasticus.’ 

— Conception of, 202 ff. 

Wisdom-Books, 199 ff., 247. 

Wise Men, 199 ff., 224, 249, 255, 


397. 
Word of God (see Logos), 392, 424, 
4261. 


411 


‘Words of the Lord,’ 303 f. 

Wordsworth, 439 f. 

Writing, 228 f., 248; Transition 
from Speech to, 226 ff, 394, 
403. 


Zahn, Dr. Th., xv, 7, 19, 28, 64f, 
106, 309 ff., 364 ff. 

Zechariah, Book of, 243, 405, 455. 

Zephaniah, 242; Book of, 453. 

Zephyrinus, 53. 


THE END. 


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